WILLIAM PENN 
 
 AND 
 
 THOMAS B. MACAULAY: 
 
 BEING 
 
 BRIEF OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARGES 
 
 MADE a 
 
 MR. MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 AGAINST THE 
 
 CHARACTER OF WILLIAM PENX. 
 
 By W. E. FORSTER. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHARLES GILPIN, 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT. 
 
 1849.
 
 ti~iin 
 
 WILLIAM PENN, 
 
 AND 
 
 T. B. MACAULAY. 
 
 The following remarks on the strictures lately made by a 
 popular writer on the character of William Penn, were 
 originally written as a preface to a new edition of Clarkson's 
 Life of Penn,* but the surprise those strictures have so 
 generally caused seems to call for the separate publication of 
 an attempt to reply to them. 
 
 Of the nature of these charges hardly any one will be 
 ignorant. Mr. Macaulay's " History of England" has 
 throughout England been read and admired. Whether its 
 accuracy will stand the test of critical inquiry the future 
 public will decide ; but there can be no question that, as a 
 story well told and pleasant to listen to, it has bewitched the 
 ears of the public of to-day, and that eventually it will rank, 
 if not as an actual history, at least as a most attractive and 
 eloquent historical romance. 
 
 In turning over its pages, so full of descriptive and 
 oratorical power, we feel as though we were wandering 
 through a gallery of pictures, or rather in quick succession 
 they flit before our eyes, for the reader has no work to do — 
 is merely required to look, not think — portraits so vivid, 
 features so striking, that, in our admiration of the artist's 
 
 * Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of William Penn, by Thomas Clark son, 
 M.A. New edition, with a Preface, in reply to the charges made by Mr. Macaulay 
 in his History of England, by W. E. Forster. London : Charles Gilpin, 5, Bishops- 
 gate Street Without.
 
 talent, we care not to inquire whether they are really like- 
 nesses, true copies from nature, or merely the creations of his 
 own fancy. 
 
 Still, when a figure comes before us such as Penn's, which 
 we think we ought to know, we cannot but start up and ask, 
 Can this mean and repulsive countenance, in real truth, 
 belong to one whom we have so long been accustomed to 
 regard with respect, we may almost say with reverence ? 
 
 For the page of our history is not so rich in illustrations of 
 nobility and worth, that we can afford to barter away any one 
 of them, not even in exchange for all the fine pictures of 
 Mr. Macaulay; and if his portrait of Penn be in truth a 
 caricature, the talent of the painter makes it all the more 
 necessary to attempt to prove that it is not a likeness. 
 
 That it is not the portrait by which Penn is generally 
 known, Mr. Macaulay himself allows : — " To speak the whole 
 " truth concerning him," he says, in his brief sketch, at the 
 first mention of his name, " is a task which requires some 
 " courage; for he is rather a mythical than a historical person. 
 " Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonizing 
 " him. England is proud of his name. A great commonwealth 
 " beyond the Atlantic regards him with a reverence similar to 
 " that which the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans 
 " for Quirinus. The respectable society of which he was a 
 " member honours him as an apostle. By pious men of other 
 " persuasions he is generally regarded as a bright pattern of 
 " Christian virtue. Meanwhile admirers of a very different 
 " sort have sounded his praises. The French philosophers of 
 " the eighteenth century pardoned what they regarded as his 
 " superstitious fancies in consideration of his contempt for 
 " priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence, impartially 
 " extended to all races and to all creeds. His name has thus 
 " become, throughout all civilised countries, a synonyme for 
 " probity and philanthropy."*" 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. p. 507. The first edition of Macaulay is tlio edition referred 
 to throughout this pamphlet.
 
 3 
 
 But is not this verdict of posterity, so unanimous and so 
 favourable, which the historian thus records, not because he 
 agrees with it, but rather to enhance his own valour in daring 
 to dispute it, in itself, by the very fact of its existence, strong 
 argument in behalf of its own truthfulness ? for man is not 
 so prodigal of praise as to bestow it on his fellow without a 
 reason. If a reputation outlives the power of its possessor, 
 there is good ground to believe it is the reward of his deeds. 
 Time tests us by what we are, not seem to be : only the fruit- 
 ful plant escapes its scythe ; the weed, however rank, is re- 
 lentlessly mown down. Many a world-wide renown follows 
 its owner to the grave ; the bubble bursts when the breath 
 leaves him who blows it ; but it is hard to find an instance 
 in which after ages have wasted honour on the worthless — 
 lavished laurels where contempt would have been fitting. 
 Posterity pays rather than gives — is just more than generous. 
 A man who was persecuted during his lifetime, then slandered 
 and hated by not a few, but who, now that almost two cen- 
 turies have elapsed, is thus honoured and revered by all 
 creeds and parties, may perchance be what Mr. Macaulay 
 chooses to term a " mythical person," but if so, there is at 
 least a meaning in the myth, for in fact no myth can be 
 formed out of a falsehood ; the very condition of its existence 
 is that there must be truth and worth in its subject : it is 
 only the heroes of history whom she deigns to clothe with a 
 mythical garment; the halo, however misty, proves that 
 within must shine a light. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay, however, it is plain, does not believe in 
 Penn, not even as the subject of a myth. He is a historical 
 sceptic, or at best a rationalist. See how ingeniously he tries 
 to undermine the fabric of this mythical renown : — " Nor is 
 " this reputation," he adds, " altogether unmerited. Penn was 
 " without doubt a man of eminent virtues. He had a strong 
 " sense of religious duty, and a fervent desire to promote the 
 "happiness of mankind. On one or two points of high im- 
 " portance he had notions more correct than were in his day 
 
 b 2
 
 " common, even among men of enlarged minds ; and, as the 
 " proprietor and legislator of a province, which, being almost 
 " uninhabited when it came into his possession, afforded a 
 " clear field for moral experiments, he had the rare good for- 
 " tune of being able to carry his theories into practice without 
 " any compromise, and yet without any shock to existing insti- 
 " tutions. He will always be mentioned with honour as the 
 " founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings with a 
 " savage people, abuse the strength derived from civilisation, 
 " and as a lawgiver, who, in an age of persecution, made reli- 
 " gious liberty the corner-stone of a polity. But his writings 
 " and his life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man 
 " of strong sense. He had no skill in reading the characters 
 " of others. His confidence in persons less virtuous than him- 
 " self led him into great errors and misfortunes. His enthu- 
 " siasm for one great principle sometimes impelled him to 
 " violate other great principles which he ought to have held 
 " sacred. Nor was his integrity altogether proof against the 
 " temptations to which it was exposed in that splendid and 
 " polite, but deeply corrupted society, with which he now 
 " mingled. The whole court was in a ferment with intrigues of 
 " gallantry and intrigues of ambition. The traffic in honours, 
 " places, and pardons was incessant. It was natural that a 
 " man who was daily seen at the palace, and who was known 
 " to have free access to majesty, should be frequently impor- 
 " tuned to use his influence for purposes which a rigid mora- 
 " lity must condemn. The integrity of Penn had stood firm 
 " against obloquy and persecution. But now, attacked by 
 " royal smiles, by female blandishments, by the insinuating 
 " eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and 
 " courtiers, his resolution began to give way. Titles and 
 " phrases against which he had often borne his testimony 
 " dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. It would 
 " be well if he had been guilty of nothing worse than such 
 " compliances witli the fashions of the world. Unhappily it 
 " cannot be concealed that he bore a chief part in some
 
 ' transactions condemned, not merely by the rigid code of 
 " the society to which he belonged, but by the general sense 
 u of all honest men. He afterwards solemnly protested that 
 " his hands were pure from illicit gain, and that he never re- 
 " ceived any gratuity from those whom he had obliged, though 
 " he might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have 
 '' made a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. To this 
 " assertion full credit is due. But bribes may be offered to 
 '' vanity as well as to cupidity, and it is impossible to deny 
 " that Penn was cajoled into bearing a part in some unjusti- 
 " fiable transactions, of which others enjoyed the profits."* 
 
 It is difficult not to admire the skill with which, in this 
 passage, the writer glides from praise to contempt, ingeniously 
 giving the impression that the praise is but in complaisance to 
 the probable prejudices of his reader, the blame his own cou- 
 rageous conviction ; and yet, if the two opinions be contrasted 
 together, they can hardly, all allowance being given for the 
 inconsistency of human nature, be made to fit. "A sense of 
 " religious duty" can scarcely be called " strong" which does 
 not save its possessor from " transactions condemned by the 
 " sense of all honest men," even though " bribes be offered 
 " to his vanity;" and it is strange that one " whose life fur- 
 " nishes abundant proof that he was not a man of strong 
 " sense" should not only have " notions on points of high 
 " importance more correct than were in his day common 
 " even among men of enlarged minds," but should be " able 
 " to carry his theories into practice," and practice so success- 
 ful, that " he Avill always," excepting of course by Mr. 
 Macaulay, " be mentioned with honour." 
 
 But leaving for the present this preliminary sketch, which, 
 consisting merely of assertion without attempt at proof, does 
 not indeed of itself need notice, except as evidence of the 
 animus of its author, we must pass on to the special charges 
 upon which this general character appears to be grounded. 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. p. 508.
 
 The first charge is in connexion with the infamous profit 
 to which the maids of honour of James's court succeeded in 
 turning Monmouth's rebellion, by the bargain which they 
 drove with the friends of the young girls of Taunton, who, in 
 the Duke's march through that town, had presented him with 
 a standard. Mr. Macaulay's statement is as follows. After 
 mentioning the thousand guineas which the Queen Mary of 
 Modena had cleared on a cargo of rebels sentenced to be 
 transported, he adds : — " We cannot wonder that her atten- 
 " dants should have imitated her unprincely greediness and 
 " her unwomanly cruelty. They exacted a thousand pounds 
 " from Roger Hoare, a merchant of Bridgewater, who had 
 " contributed to the military chest of the rebel army. But 
 " the prey on which they pounced most eagerly was one which 
 " it might have been thought that even the most ungentle 
 "■ natures would have spared. Already some of the girls who 
 " had presented the standard to Monmouth at Taunton had 
 " cruelly expiated their offence. * * * Most of 
 " the young ladies, however, who had walked in the proces- 
 " sion were still alive. Some of them were under ten years of 
 " age. All had acted under the orders of their schoolmistress, 
 " without knowing that they were committing a crime. The 
 " Queen's maids of honour asked the royal permission to wring 
 " money out of the parents of the poor children ; and the per- 
 " mission was granted. An order was sent down to Taunton 
 " that all these little girls should be seized and imprisoned. 
 " Sir Francis Warre, of Hestercombe, the Tory member for 
 " Bridgewater, was requested to undertake the office of ex- 
 " acting the ransom. He was charged to declare in strong 
 " language that the maids of honour would not endure delay, 
 " that they were determined to prosecute to outlawry, unless 
 " a reasonable sum were forthcoming, and that by a reason- 
 " able sum was meant seven thousand pounds. Warre ex- 
 " cused himself from taking any part in a transaction so 
 " scandalous. The maids of honour then requested William
 
 " Penn to act for them ; and Penn accepted the commission. 
 " Yet it should seem that a little of the pertinacious scrupu- 
 losity which he had often shown about taking off his hat 
 " would not have been altogether out of place on this occasion. 
 " He probably silenced the remonstrances of his conscience 
 " by repeating to himself that none of the money which he 
 " extorted would go into his own pocket ; that if he refused 
 " to be the agent of the ladies they would find agents less 
 " humane ; that by complying he should increase his influ- 
 " ence at the court ; and that his influence at the court had 
 " already enabled him, and might still enable him, to render 
 " great services to his oppressed brethren. The maids of 
 " honour were at last forced to content themselves with less 
 " than a third part of what they had demanded."* 
 
 This is the story, and one disclosing more contemptible 
 cruelty it is scarcely possible to imagine. Innocent girls, 
 whose sole offence was obedience to the orders of their 
 mistress, thrown into a dungeon in order that maids of 
 honour may exact a ransom for their liberty — the scrupulous 
 Quaker acting as broker in this vile speculation, accepting 
 the commission which the Tory cavalier had refused : if this 
 story be as he tells it, Mr. Macaulay may well say that Perm's 
 integrity was no proof against " female blandishment." A 
 transaction so mean, so hypocritical, would indeed deserve 
 the opprobrium "of all honest men." No defence could be 
 attempted of a deed which no possible motive could justify 
 and the reader could only wonder what can be Mr. Macaulay' s 
 definition of the " religious duty," with " a strong sense" of 
 which he declares its perpetrator to have been endued. 
 
 Doubtless the charge is bad enough, but now what are the 
 proofs ? 
 
 The only one of the authorities Mr. Macaulay quotes iu 
 reference to this case, in which there is any allusion to Penn. 
 is the following letter from the Earl of Sunderland, the 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. p. 656.
 
 8 
 
 then Home Secretary, a copy of which is in the State Paper 
 Office :— 
 
 " Whitehall, Febry. 13th, 1685-6, 
 
 " Mr. Penne — Her Maj ties Maids of Honour having acquainted 
 me, that they designe to employ you and Mr. Walden in making a 
 composition with the Relations of the Maids of Taunton for the high 
 Misdemeanor they have heen guilty of, I do at their request hereby 
 let you know that her Maj ( >' has been pleased to give their Fines to the 
 said maids of Honor, and therefore recommend it to Mr. Walden 
 and you to make the most advantageous composition you can in 
 their behalfe. 
 
 " I am, Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 " Sunderland P."* 
 
 This letter, to which no reply can be found either in the 
 State Paper Office or elsewhere, is the sole proof upon which 
 the charge is grounded : there exists no collateral evidence 
 whatever confirming its receipt by Penn, much less his 
 acceptance of its commission : it is not even certain that it 
 was addressed to him. The address in the State Paper Office 
 is not " William Penn, Esq.," nor "William Penn at all, but 
 plain Mr. Penne, and therefore it is quite possible that it was 
 intended for a certain " George Penne,"f who it appears was 
 instrumental in effecting the release from slavery of a Mr. 
 Azariah Pinney, a gentleman of Bettescombe, near Crewkerne, 
 in Somersetshire, whose sentence to death had been com- 
 muted to transportation. J 
 
 But allowing that Sunderland's letter was addressed to 
 William Penn, what does it prove ? Not that he undertook 
 the office in question, but merely that " the maids of honour 
 " having acquainted" the Secretary " that they designed to 
 " employ him and a Mr. Walden, he therefore recommended 
 
 * State Paper Office. Letter Book, 1679-1688. Domestic Various. No. 629, 
 p. 324. 
 
 f Possibly the same Gr. Pen mentioned by Pepys in his " Diary/ 1 April 4, 1660. 
 
 J See Roberts' Life of Monmouth (vol. ii. p. 243) whose authority is family letters 
 in the possession of Mr. Finnoy's descendants.
 
 9 
 
 " it to Mr. Walden and to him to make the most advantageous 
 " composition they can in their behalf." 
 
 Mark, Sunderland rests his recommendation not on any- 
 previous communication between himself and Penn, nor 
 between Penn and the maids of honour, but merely on their 
 " design to employ" him and another ; how then can we tell 
 that Penn was even privy to such design ? The case of the 
 Taunton maids excited no little interest both at the time and 
 since, but neither in the official documents connected there- 
 with, nor in any general history, nor in the local records, is 
 there any other allusion to Penn, nor is there any mention 
 whatever of the matter in either his own letters or biography. 
 
 Surely then, even on his own authority, Mr. Macaulay's 
 positive assertion that "the maids of honour requested William 
 " Penn to act for them," and that he " accepted the com- 
 " mission," is an unwarrantable assumption. 
 
 There is, however, one historian, and that too a contem- 
 porary, almost an eye-witness, by whom this assertion is not 
 confirmed but contradicted. Oldmixon, in his History, gives 
 the following account of the transaction : — " The Court was 
 " so unmerciful, that they excepted the poor girls of Taunton, 
 " who gave Monmouth colours, out of their pretended pardon, 
 " and ^every one of them was forced to pay as much money as 
 " woidd have been a good portion to each for particular par- 
 " dons. This money, and a great deal more, was said to be for 
 " the maids of honour, whose agent Brent, the Popish lawyer, 
 " had an under agent, one Crane of Bridgewater, and 'tis sup- 
 " posed that both of them paid themselves very bountifully 
 " out of the money which was raised by this means, some in- 
 " stances of which arc within my knowledge."* Now, though 
 it may be alleged that Oldmixon is by no means an infallible 
 guide, not bearing a very high character for accuracy, yet in a 
 case like this, some of the circumstances of which he declares 
 to have been "within his own knowledge," which may be well 
 
 * Oldmixon, vol ii. p. 70S.
 
 10 
 
 believed, seeing he was, as Mr. Macaulay says, when quoting 
 him in reference to Monmouth's entrance into Taunton, " then 
 " a boy living very near the scene of these events,"* in fact at 
 Bridgewater itself, t so that he was Crane's fellow-townsman, 
 his testimony would at least seem worthy of notice. 
 
 Moreover, Penn having been his personal acquaintance, j 
 had he reallv acted as broker in this business, Oldmixon could 
 scarcely have been ignorant of the fact. Still, strange as it 
 may seem, Mr. Macaulay, who often quotes§ him, in one case 
 by himself, 1 1 and even gives him as an authority^" in an earlier 
 part of this very story of the Taunton maids, completely passes 
 him by, when his evidence would thus disturb his hypothesis 
 of Penn's hypocrisy. This account also has some slight col- 
 lateral support, which Mr. Macaulay's has not, for we find, 
 from a petition in the State Paper Office from one suspected 
 of having been engaged in the rebellion, endorsed Brent, and 
 also from a passage in the second Lord Clarendon's Diary, 
 wherein he says that a " Lady Tipping had offered Mr. Brent 
 "£200. to get a noli prosequi"** that "this vile wretch," as 
 Oldmixonft calls him, was an acknowledged pardon-broker, 
 and therefore a very probable agent for these maids of honour 
 to employ. Again, the wording of the warrant, dated March 
 11, 1686-7, is worth attention. It states, that it is "his 
 " Majesty's pleasure that these maids, or their relations and 
 " friends, who have compounded or shall compound, with the 
 " agent employed by her Majesty's said maids of honour, shall 
 "not," % % &c. The word ayentis applicable enough to Old- 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. p. 580. Also Mackintosh's History of the Revolution, pp. 13, 
 21, 24. 
 
 t Macaulay, vol. i. p. 612. 
 
 % Oldmixon's Account of British Colonies, printed 1708 ; quoted in Proud's 
 History of Pennsylvania, vol. i. pp. 244-486. 
 
 § Macaulay, vol. i. pp. 588, 596, 602-4-5, 635, &c. 
 || Macaulay, vol. i. p. 593. 
 
 • Macaulay, vol. i. p. 586. 
 
 »• Clarendon's Diary, March 19, 1687-8. 
 
 tt Oldmixon, p. 708. 
 
 XX State Taper Warrant Office Book, ii. 219.
 
 11 
 
 mixon's version, viz., that Brent was the agent of the maids 
 of honour and Crane merely his sub-agent, but if Sunder- 
 land's recommendation had been carried out, and both Penn 
 and AValden employed, the plural number would probably 
 have been used. 
 
 But granting, which we think the reader will hardly be 
 disposed to do, that Brent's agency is an invention of Old- 
 mixon, and Penn's interference is proved, even then, as is 
 stated by a previous historian,* " the transaction presents two 
 " phases," and Penn might doubtless have " thought not of 
 " the lucre of the traffickers, but of the mercy which they sold." 
 In our utter ignorance of all the circumstances which preceded 
 his interference, allowing he did interfere, why should we not 
 suppose that the relations of the girls, who it must be remem- 
 bered had been seized and their ransom allotted before the 
 date of Sunderland's letter, had applied to Penn as a man of 
 influence, honesty, and benevolence, to intercede in their be- 
 half, and that the Secretary's commission was in consequence 
 of such application, and the diminution of the ransom " to 
 " less than one-third of the original demand"t his reward for 
 his trouble. This view of the matter Mr. Roberts, the writer 
 above quoted, we observe takes, and though also an assump- 
 tion, it is no ways more gratuitous than Mr. Macaulay's, and 
 has at least the advantage of being in accordance with Penn's 
 general character. In one expression which he uses, Mr. 
 Macaulay seems himself to lean to this interpretation, when 
 he states that the Quaker probably " silenced the remon- 
 " strances of his conscience by repeating to himself that if he 
 " refused to be the agent they would find others less humane," 
 but in this case he would not have designated the commission 
 which he says Penn accepted as a " scandalous transaction," 
 nor called it an " office of exacting ransom." These terms, 
 together with his previous remarks, show clearly enough that 
 he chooses to consider Penn as having been, not an intcr- 
 
 * Koberts, vol. ii. p. 211. t Macaulay, vol. i. p. 656.
 
 12 
 
 cessor for mercy, but an abettor of cruelty, pandering to 
 oppression in order that his vanity might be pampered. 
 
 Possibly Mr. Macaulay may conceive that no one, not even 
 a Quaker, gifted with " a strong sense of religious duty/' can 
 withstand the " blandishments" of a maid of honour, but at 
 least he should have satisfied himself that these blandishments 
 were used, before he gives this least probable — this most un- 
 charitable interpretation of a fact, which, though asserted by 
 himself as undoubted, is in itself most doubtful, contradicted 
 by the testimony of a competent contemporary — the sole evi- 
 dence in support of which is a commission which we can not 
 be sure was addressed to, and which we have no reason to 
 believe was accepted by, the party whom he accuses. 
 
 If by " mythical" Mr. Macaulay means fabulous, distorted, 
 exaggerated, it is now easy to understand why he calls Penn 
 a " mythical person." He would indeed be such if his cha- 
 racter depended on his description, for assertions thus estab- 
 lished, deductions thus inferred, may make up a romance, or, 
 if men choose to believe them, even constitute a mvth, but 
 can scarcely claim the title of history. 
 
 Dismissing the maids of honour, the next mention of Penn 
 by Mr. Macaulay, and therefore the next insinuation against 
 his character, for he never, after the first introduction of his 
 name, alludes to him except disparagingly, is in his description 
 of the legal murders of Gaunt and Cornish. The manner in 
 which he describes Penn's presence at these executions, " for 
 " whom," he says, " exhibitions which humane men generally 
 " avoid seem to have had strong attraction,"* affords a striking 
 instance of his unaccountable determination to give the worst 
 possible colour to every one of his acts. He seems to suppose 
 that his motive must have been, like Sclwyn's, a passion for 
 seeing hanging, or at best an idle curiosity. Clarkson's re- 
 marks and flotations from Burnet, who notoriously disliked 
 
 * Macaulay, toI. i. p. 665.
 
 13 
 
 him, show that it was much more probably a wish to be able 
 to make a true report, aud therefore an effective remonstrance 
 to the King; and enable us to pass on to another charge, 
 upon which also it is not needful to dwell, for though a direct, 
 it is by no means a dangerous attack, Mr. Macaulay himself 
 providing the defence, the statement he makes in his text 
 being contradicted by the authority he quotes in its margin. 
 In his description of the efforts which James made, towards 
 the end of his reign, to win the aid of the Dissenters in his 
 struggles, he gives the case of Kiffin, a London Baptist, of 
 high influence, both from his wealth and worth. Two of 
 Kiffin's grandsons had been executed, or rather murdered, by 
 sentence of the Bloody Assizes ; no wonder, therefore, that, 
 justly regarding the King with personal as well as political 
 abhorrence, he wished to decline the alderman's gown, which 
 was offered to him to secure his support. 
 
 While his acceptance of this office was in suspense (for 
 though Mr. Macaulay gives the impression that Kiffin did not 
 accept it, his own Memoirs state distinctly that, after six 
 weeks' consideration, he did), " Penn," says Mr. Macaulay, 
 " was employed in the work of seduction, but to no purpose."' 55 ' 
 
 At the foot of the page containing this sentence are two 
 references, viz., " Kiffin's Memoirs," and " Luson's Letter 
 " to Brooke." In the Letter there is no allusion to Penn, but 
 in the Memoirs we find the following : — " In a little after a 
 ' ' great temptation attended me, which was a commission from 
 " the King to be one of the aldermen of the city of London, 
 " which, as soon as I heard of it, I used all the means I coidd 
 " to be excused, both by some lords near the King, and also by 
 " Sir Nicholas Butler and Mr. Penn."t The prejudice, for we 
 can really find no better word, must indeed be powerful, 
 which can thus induce an historian to pervert Kiffin's ac- 
 knowledgment that he made use of Penn to get excused into a 
 
 • Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 230. t Kiffin's Memoir?, edited by Orme, p. 84,
 
 14 
 
 proof that " Penn was employed by the King in the work of 
 " seduction." 
 
 The accusation which must now be noticed is one which 
 will require a more detailed examination. The Quaker is 
 again represented as acting the base part of a political pinrp, 
 but the object of the King is not now merely the gain of the 
 vote and interest of one London alderman, though a Baptist 
 to boot, but the delivery of the fair foundation of Magdalen 
 College, with all its rich lands, into the arms of the greedy 
 Jesuits. In order, however, to form a just judgment of 
 Penn's conduct in this matter, the story of the case, up to 
 the time of his interference, must, though well known, be 
 briefly recapitulated. 
 
 In March, 1687, the President of Magdalen College died ; 
 the King, not satisfied with having secured University and 
 Christ Church Colleges for the Roman Catholics, seized this 
 opportunity to spread the sway of his faith, and sent down 
 letters mandatory to the fellows, recommending them to elect 
 to the vacant place one Antony Farmer, a notorious libertine, 
 but as a renegade Papist a fit man to serve the purpose of 
 the Court, though therefore all the more odious to the mem- 
 bers of the College. By the statutes of the foundation the 
 right of election rested with the fellows, but in case the Court 
 proposed a candidate duly qualified, it had not been unusual 
 to accept its nomination. Against such an appointment as 
 this, however, the fellows protested, most reasonably, but in 
 vain, and at length, having postponed as long as possible the 
 election, in the fruitless hope that some attention would be 
 paid to their protest, they appointed, on the 15th of April, 
 Dr. Hough, a divine, whom Mr. Macaulay justly describes as 
 " a man of eminent virtue and prudence." At this act, by 
 which, while vindicating their rights, they defied the Royal 
 wish, James was, as might be expected, greatly enraged : 
 accordingly, in June, the fellows were cited to appear before 
 the High Commission, by whom Hough's election was an-
 
 15 
 
 nulled ; but abundant proof having been given of Farmer's 
 vicious habits, his name was silently dropped as too disgraceful 
 to press, and fresh letters mandatory were sent down in 
 August, ordering the fellows forthwith to choose as their Pre- 
 sident, Parker, the Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 Parker, though not an avowed was a suspected Papist, and, 
 as such, and as a well-known partisan of the Papist party, 
 most distasteful to the fellows, who, fortunately for the ex- 
 pression of their dislike, were able to rest their opposition to 
 his appointment on two valid legal objections. Hough was 
 their duly elected President ; their oath, therefore, bound 
 them to support him ; and even had the Presidency been 
 vacant, they were sworn to appoint a fellow of either New 
 College or Magdalen, neither of which conditions Parker fid- 
 filled. On these grounds, therefore, they respectfully de- 
 clined to obey the King's order, stating they could not 
 without perjuring themselves. Thus far had the dispute pro- 
 ceeded, when, on the 3rd of September, James, in the course 
 of his progress, arrived at Oxford. On the clay after his 
 arrival he sent for the disobedient fellows, they tendered him 
 a petition, he refused to accept it, and in great wrath ordered 
 them to be " gone to their home" — that instant " to repair to 
 " their chapel," and as they feared the " weight of his hand," 
 " elect the Bishop of Oxford."* To their chapel they retired, 
 to consult whether they should obey their Sovereign or abide 
 by their oath, and to their lasting honour they boldly resolved 
 to do the latter. 
 
 At this stage of the conflict Penn for the first time appears 
 on the field, and it will now be necessary to quote Mr. 
 Macaulay, at full length, in doing which it may be well to 
 put side by side with his account that contained in AVilmot's 
 Life of Hough, from which he probably obtained his infor- 
 mation. The word probably is used, because, as Mr. Macaulay 
 
 * Wilmot's Life of Hough, p. 15.
 
 16 
 
 quotes no reference in his story of Penn's interference, it is 
 impossible to define with certainty the authorities on which 
 he grounds it ; but though the Life of Hough is not in the list 
 of authors which, at the end of his report of the Magdalen 
 College case he gives en masse, leaving his reader to allot as < 
 he best can the special circumstances to each, still as it is 
 evident, from his text, that he consulted this work, and as, 
 moreover, it contains a statement impartial, or, if biassed at 
 all, certainly against Penn, and the only one professing to be 
 a complete relation of the facts, its comparison with Mr. 
 Macaiday will show how far he is justified in his assertions. 
 
 One remark, however, is needed before making these quo- 
 tations. By a mode of lumping facts, which, though with 
 most historians it would be accounted strange, is by no means 
 rare with Mr. Macaulay, whose artistic fancy not unfre- 
 quently induces him to sacrifice accuracy of perspective in his 
 pictures to effect in the grouping of his figures, he manages 
 to give the impression that the transaction he describes was 
 one incident, or at least an unbroken series of events, instead 
 of comprising, as was the case, three distinct incidents occu- 
 pying altogether a space of more than a month. In order, 
 therefore, fairly to test, or in fact to understand his narrative, 
 it will be needful to follow the example of a previous critic,* 
 and to divide it into three distinct parts ; and if, in so doing, 
 it be objected that sentences which are intended to apply to 
 one occurrence are quoted as referring to another, all that 
 can be said is, that every care has been taken to apportion 
 the descriptions to those circumstances to which they appear 
 to be least inapplicable : — 
 
 MACAULAY. t WILJIOT's LIFE OF HOUGH. I 
 
 "The King, greatly incensed " It appears, from Anthony A. 
 and mortified by his defeat," (viz., Wood's account of this visit" (viz., 
 the refusal of the fellows to admit the King's visit to Oxford), " that 
 
 ♦ Tablet, March 10, 1S4D. J Wilmot'fl Life of Hough, p. 15. 
 
 Macanlay, vol. ii. p. 298.
 
 17 
 
 Parker as their President), " quit- 
 ted Oxford and rejoined the Queen 
 at Bath. His obstinacy and vio- 
 lence had brought him into an 
 embarrassing position. He had 
 trusted too much to the effect of 
 his frowns and angry tones, and 
 had rashly staked not only the 
 credit of his administration, but 
 his personal dignity, on the issue 
 of the contest. Could he yield to 
 subjects whom he had menaced 
 with raised voice and furious ges- 
 tures ? Yet could he venture to 
 eject in one day a crowd of re- 
 spectable clergymen from their 
 homes because they had dis- 
 charged what the whole nation 
 regarded as a sacred duty 1 Per- 
 haps there might be an escape 
 from this dilemma. Perhaps the 
 College might still be terrified, 
 caressed, or bribed into submis- 
 sion. The agency of Penn was 
 employed. He had too much 
 good feeling to approve of the un- 
 just and violent measures of the 
 government, and even ventured to 
 express part of what he thought. 
 James was, as usual, obstinate in 
 the wrong." 
 
 W. Penn, who attended the King 
 to Oxford, went afterwards to 
 Magdalen College ; and although 
 he at first hoped to persuade the 
 fellows to comply with the King's 
 wishes, yet, when he heard the 
 statement of their case, he was 
 satisfied that they could not com- 
 ply without a breach of their 
 oaths. This account is confirmed 
 by some original letters now in 
 the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 
 from Dr. Sykes and Mr. Creech to 
 Dr. Charlett, of the 6th, 7th, and 
 9 th of September, 1687, in which, 
 after giving exactly the same ac- 
 count of the King's reception and 
 treatment of the fellows, they both 
 state that Mr. Penn went after- 
 wards to Magdalen College, and 
 having had some conference with 
 the fellows, wrote a letter to the 
 King in their behalf, observing 
 ' that their case was hard ; that 
 in their circumstances they could 
 not yield without a breach of 
 their oaths ; and that such man- 
 dates were a force upon con- 
 science, and not agreeable to the 
 
 King's other 
 gences.' " 
 
 gracious indul- 
 
 Tbis interview of Perm with the fellows must have occurred 
 between the 3rd of September, the day of the King's arrival 
 at Oxford, and the 9th of the same month, the date of the 
 last of the letters referred to by VTilmot. Some time after- 
 wards, on what exact day is not known, but probably about 
 the end of the month, an anonymous letter was received by 
 Dr. Thomas Bailey, one of the fellows, which he chose to 
 attribute to Penn, to whom he sent a reply, on which two 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 epistles Mr. Macaulay rests the following declamation, or at 
 least must be supposed to rest it, all otlier authority being 
 utterly wanting : — 
 
 MACAULAY.* 
 
 " The courtly Quaker therefore 
 did his best to seduce the College 
 from the path of right. He first 
 tried intimidation. Ruin he said 
 impended over the society. The 
 King was highly incensed. The 
 case might be a hard one. Most 
 people thought it so. But every 
 child knew that his Majesty loved 
 to have his own way, and could 
 not bear to be thwarted. Penn, 
 therefore, exhorted the fellows not 
 to rely upon the goodness of their 
 cause, but to submit, or at least 
 to temporise. Such counsel came 
 strangely from one who had him- 
 self been expelled from the Uni- 
 versity for raising a riot about 
 the surplice, who had run the risk 
 of being disinherited rather than 
 take off his hat to the princes of 
 the blood, and had been more 
 than once sent to prison for 
 preaching at conventicles. He 
 did not succeed in frightening the 
 Magdalen men. In answer to his 
 alarming hints he was reminded 
 that in the last generation thirty- 
 four out of the forty fellows had 
 cheerfully left their beloved clois- 
 ters and gardens, their hall and 
 
 WILMOT.t 
 
 " It was now rumoured that the 
 King had issued an order to pro- 
 ceed against the College by a writ 
 of Quo Warranto, but however 
 this was, the fellows appear to have 
 listened to an application made 
 to Dr. Thomas Bailey, one of the 
 senior fellows, from William Penn, 
 who was said to be in great favour 
 at that time with the King, and 
 had written to the Doctor" a 
 letter, of which the following is a 
 copy :t— 
 
 "a copy of a letter directed 
 to dr. bayley, fellow of mag- 
 dalen college, oxon, supposed 
 to be writ by mr. william 
 
 PENN. 
 
 " Sir — Upon an inquiry made of 
 your present fellows of Magdalen 
 College, I am informed that you 
 are a person eminent in that 
 learned body, for your temper, 
 prudence, and good conduct in 
 affairs, and therefore very fit to 
 be addressed to by me, who do not 
 send you this to trepan you and 
 your brethren, but out of a pas- 
 sionate concern for your interest ; 
 to persuade you either to a com- 
 pliance with his Majesty's letters 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 298. t Wilmot, p. 18. 
 
 + Quotations only from this letter are given in Wilmot, but the reader will under- 
 stand it better if he read it all, and it is therefore given above in full, as printed in 
 the State Trials, vol. iv. p. 270.
 
 19 
 
 their chapel, and had gone forth, 
 not knowing where they should 
 find a meal or a bed, rather than 
 violate the oath of allegiance. 
 The King now wished them to 
 violate another oath. He should 
 find that the old spirit was not 
 extinct." 
 
 mandatory, or to think among 
 yourselves of some expedient to 
 prevent the ruin of your College 
 and yourselves ; and to offer it to 
 his Majesty's royal consideration, 
 that the order for the Quo War- 
 ranto against the College may be 
 recalled, before it be too late ; for 
 you cannot but be sensible how 
 highly his Majesty is incensed 
 against you, neither can you give 
 one instance whether ever that 
 sort of proceeding was judged 
 against the Crown. Your cause 
 most think it very hard ; but 
 you are not in prudence to rely 
 on the goodness of your cause, but 
 to do what the present instance of 
 affairs will permit, and in patience 
 to expect a season that will be 
 more auspicious to persons of your 
 character. Every mechanic knows 
 the temper of his present Majesty, 
 who never will receive a baffle in 
 anything that he heartily es- 
 pouseth ; and that he doth this, 
 yourselves have had too late and 
 manifest an instance to doubt of 
 his zeal in the affair. 
 
 " Where there are so many 
 statutes to be observed, it is im- 
 possible but some must be broken 
 at one time or another ; and I am 
 informed by the learned of the 
 law, that a failure in any one point 
 forfeits your grant, and lays your 
 College open to the Royal disposal. 
 
 " I could give many other pru- 
 dent arguments that might pos- 
 sibly incline you to a speedy en- 
 deavour of putting an end to your 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 troubles almost at any rate ; but I 
 shall suggest this one thing to you, 
 that your fatal overthrow would be 
 a fair beginning of so much aimed 
 at reformation, first of the Univer- 
 sity, then of the Church, and ad- 
 minister such an opportunity to 
 the enemy as may perhaps not 
 occur in his Majesty's reign. 
 " Your affectionate servant, &c." 
 " There was no signature to this 
 letter, but, from what passed after- 
 wards, there is every reason to be- 
 lieve that it was written by William 
 Penn, to whom it was ascribed. 
 
 " Dr. Bailey returned a long 
 and argumentative answer to this 
 letter, on the 3rd of October, 
 directed to Mr. Penn, in which 
 he says, ' The paper enclosed is a 
 copy of a letter, which, by the 
 charitable purpose of it, seems to 
 be written by you, who have been 
 already so kind as to appear in 
 our behalf, and are reported by all 
 who know you to employ much 
 of your time in doing good to 
 mankind, and using your credit 
 with his Majesty to undeceive him 
 in any wrong impressions given 
 him of his conscientious subjects, 
 and, where his justice and good- 
 ness have been thereby abused, to 
 reconcile the persons injured to 
 his Majesty's favour, and secure 
 them by it from oppression and 
 prejudice. In this confidence, I 
 presume to make this application 
 to you, desiring your excuse for 
 not subscribing it ; for if you did 
 write the letter you know to whom
 
 21 
 
 it was directed ; and if you did 
 not, I Lope your charity will in- 
 duce you to make such use of your 
 light you have by it into the 
 affairs of our College, as to mediate 
 for us with his Majesty to be re- 
 stored to his good opinion, as the 
 only thing which is desired by us, 
 who are zealous, above all earthly 
 things, for his felicity and glory." 
 
 What reply Penn sent to Bailey's letter, or whether lie 
 sent any, is not known, bnt very soon after this,"* " viz., on the 
 " 9th of October, a deputation from the College, of which Dr. 
 " Hough was one, had a conference with Mr. Penn at Windsor, 
 " where the Court at that time was held/' which is described 
 by Dr. Hough in the following letter to a relation, a copy of 
 which is among the MSS. of the British Museum, and para- 
 phrased by Mr. Macaulay as follows : — 
 
 MACAULAY.f wiLMOT.t (Hough's Letter.) 
 " Then Penn tried a gentler 
 tone. He had an interview with " October the 9th, at night, 
 Hough and with some of the fel- " Dear Cousin, — I gave you a 
 lows, and, after many professions short account of what passed at 
 of sympathy and friendship, began Windsor this morning: but 
 to hint at a compromise. The having the convenience of send- 
 King could not bear to be crossed, ing this by Mr. Charlett, I fancy 
 The College must give way. you will be well enough satisfied 
 Parker must be admitted. But to hear our discourse with Mr. 
 he was in very bad health. As Penn more at large, 
 his preferments would soon be " He was in all about three 
 vacant, 'Doctor Hough,' said hours in our company, and at his 
 Penn, ' may then be Bishop of first coming in, he began with the 
 Oxford. How should you like great concern he had for the wel- 
 that, gentlemen?' Penn had fare of our College, the many 
 passed his life in declaiming efforts he had made to reconcile 
 against a hireling ministry. He us to the King, and the great sin- 
 held that he was bound to refuse cerity of his intentions and ac- 
 the payment of tithes, and this tions ; that he thought nothing 
 
 * Wilmot, p. 22. t Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 289. t Wilniot, pp. 25 to 30.
 
 22 
 
 even when he had bought land 
 chargeable with tithes, and had 
 been allowed the value of the 
 tithes in the purchase money. 
 According to his own principles, 
 he would have committed a great 
 sin if he had interfered for the 
 purpose of obtaining a benefice 
 on the most honourable terms for 
 the most pious divine. Yet to 
 such a degree had his manners 
 been corrupted by evil communi- 
 cations, and his understanding 
 obscured by inordinate zeal for a 
 single object, that he did not 
 scruple to become a broker in 
 simony of a peculiarly discredit- 
 able kind, and to use a bishopric 
 as a bait to tempt a divine to per- 
 jury. Hough replied with civil 
 contempt that he wanted nothing 
 from the Crown but common jus- 
 tice. ' We stand,' he said, ' on 
 our statutes and our oaths ; but, 
 even setting aside our statutes 
 and oaths, we feel that we have 
 our religion to defend. The 
 Papists have robbed us of Christ 
 Church. The fight is now for 
 Magdalen. They will soon have 
 all the rest.' 
 
 " Penn was foolish enough to 
 answer that he really believed 
 that the Papists would now be 
 content. ' University,' he said, 
 ' is a pleasant college. Christ 
 Church is a noble place. Magda- 
 len is a fine building. The situa- 
 tion is convenient. The walks 
 by the river are delightful. If 
 the Roman Catholics are reason- 
 
 in this world was worth a trick, 
 or any thing sufficient to justify 
 collusion or deceitful artifice, and 
 this he insisted so long upon, that 
 I easily perceived he expected 
 something of a compliment, by 
 way of assent, should be returned ; 
 and therefore, though I had much 
 ado to bring it out, I told him 
 that whatever others might con- 
 ceive of him, he might be assured 
 we depended upon his sincerity, 
 otherwise we would never have 
 given ourselves the trouble to 
 come thither to meet him. 
 
 "He then gave an historical 
 account, in short, of his acquaint- 
 ance with the King ; assured us 
 it was not Popery but Property 
 that first began it ; that however 
 people were pleased to call him 
 Papist, he declared to us that he 
 was a dissenting Protestant ; that 
 he dissented from Papists in al- 
 most all those points wherein we 
 differ from them, and many 
 wherein we and they are agreed. 
 
 " After this we came to the 
 College again. He wished with 
 all his heart that he had sooner 
 concerned himself in it, but he 
 was afraid that he had now come 
 too late ; however, he would use 
 his endeavours, and if they were 
 unsuccessful, we must refer it to 
 want of power, not of good will, 
 to serve us. I told him I thought 
 the most effectual way would be 
 to give his Majesty a true state of 
 the case, which I had reason to 
 suspect he had never yet re-
 
 23 
 
 able, they will be satisfied with 
 these.' This absurd avowal would 
 alone have made it impossible for 
 Hough and his brethren to yield. 
 The negotiation was broken off, 
 and the King hastened to make 
 the disobedient know, as he had 
 threatened, what it was to incur 
 his displeasure." 
 
 ' 
 
 ceived; and therefore I offered him 
 some papers for his instruction, 
 whereof one was a copy of our 
 first petition before the election, 
 another was our letter to tho 
 Duke of Ormond and the state of 
 our case ; a third was that peti- 
 tion which our society had offered 
 to his Majesty here at Oxford, 
 and a fourth was that sent after 
 the King to Bath. He seemed 
 to read them very attentively, and 
 after many objections, (to which 
 he owned I gave him satisfactory 
 answers), he promised faithfully 
 to read every word to the King, 
 unless he was peremptorily com- 
 manded to forbear. He was very 
 solicitous to clear Lord Sunder- 
 land of suspicion, and threw the 
 odium upon the Chancellor, which 
 I think I told you in the morn- 
 ing, and which makes me think 
 there is little good to be hoped 
 for from him. 
 
 " He said the measures now re- 
 solved upon were such as the 
 King thought would take effect ; 
 but he said he knew nothing in 
 particular, nor did he give the 
 least light, or let fall any thing 
 wherein we might so much as 
 ground a conjecture, nor did he 
 so much as hint at the letter 
 which was sent to him. 
 
 I thank God he did not so 
 much as offer at any proposal by 
 way of accommodation, which was 
 the thing I most dreaded ; only 
 once, upon the mention of the 
 Bishop of Oxford's indisposition.
 
 24 
 
 he said, smiling, ' If the Bishop 
 of Oxford die, Dr. Hough may be 
 made Bishop. "What thinkf you 
 of that, gentlemen V Mr. Cradock 
 answered, 'they should be heartily 
 glad of it, for it would do very 
 well with the Presidentship.' But 
 I told him seriously, I had no am- 
 bition above the post in which I 
 was, and that having never been 
 conscious to myself of any dis- 
 loyalty towards my Prince, I could 
 not but wonder what it was should 
 make me so much more incapable 
 of serving his Majesty in it than 
 those whom he had been pleased 
 to recommend.' He said, Majesty 
 did not love to be thwarted ; and 
 after so long a dispute we could 
 not expect to be restored to the 
 King's favour without making 
 some concessions.' I told him, 
 ' that we were ready to make all 
 that were consistent with honesty 
 and conscience ;' but many things 
 might have been said upon that 
 subject, which I did not then 
 think proper to mention. ' How- 
 ever,' said I, ' Mr. Penn, in this I 
 will be plain with you. We have 
 our statutes and oaths to justify 
 us in all that we have done 
 hitherto ; but setting this aside, 
 we have a religion to defend, and 
 I suppose yourself would think 
 us knaves if we should tamely 
 give it up. The Papists have al- 
 ready gotten Christ Church and 
 University ; the present struggle 
 is for Magdalen; and in a short 
 time they threaten they will have
 
 25 
 
 the rest.' He replied with vehe- 
 mence, ' That they shall never 
 have, assure yourselves ; if once 
 they proceed so far, they will 
 quickly find themselves destitute 
 of their present assistance. For 
 my part, I have always declared 
 my opinion that the preferments 
 of the Church should not be put 
 into any other hands but such as 
 they at present are in ; but I hope 
 you would not have the two Uni- 
 versities such invincible bulwarks 
 for the Church of England, that 
 none but they must be capable of 
 giving their children a learned 
 education. I suppose two or three 
 colleges will content the Papists : 
 Christ Church is a noble struc- 
 ture, University is a pleasant 
 place, and Magdalen College is a 
 comely building. The walks are 
 pleasant, and it is conveniently 
 situated just at the entrance of 
 the town,' &c. &c. When I heard 
 him talk at this rate, 1 concluded 
 he was either off his guard, or had 
 a mind to droll upon us. ' How- 
 ever,' I replied, ' when they had 
 ours they would take the rest, as 
 they and the present possessors 
 could never agree.' In short, I 
 see it is resolved that the Papists 
 must have our College ; and I 
 think all we have to do is, to let 
 the world see that they take it 
 from us, and that we do not give 
 it up. 
 
 " I count it great good fortune 
 that so many were present at this 
 discourse (whereof I have not told
 
 26 
 
 you a sixth j:>art, but I think the 
 most considerable ;) for otherwise 
 I doubt this last passage would 
 have been suspected as if to 
 heighten their courage through 
 despair. But there was not a 
 word said in private, Mr. Ham- 
 mond, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Cradock, 
 and Mr. Young being present all 
 the time. 
 
 " Give my most humble service 
 to Sir Thomas Powell and Mrs. 
 Powell. 
 
 " I am, dear Sir, 
 
 " Your very affectionate and 
 " faithful Servant, 
 
 "J. H." 
 
 With this interview ended, so far as history informs us, 
 Penn's interference. 
 
 The disagreement between the two narratives above quoted 
 is almost too evident to need remark, but it may be worth 
 while to recapitulate Mr. Macaulay's perversions and omissions. 
 
 First, as regards Penn's earliest share in the business, viz., 
 his conference with the fellows at Oxford, Mr. Macaulay says, 
 " Penn's agency was employed." None of Wilmot's autho- 
 rities, neither Antony A. "Wood, nor Sykes' and Creech's 
 letters, mention any employment ; they merely state that, 
 after the King had met the fellows, Penn went to Magdalen 
 College, but whether at the instigation of the Court or of his 
 own feelings they do not add. His object may, as has been 
 well stated, have been " either to save the King from his 
 " dilemma or the College from its peril. "* The imputation of 
 either motive is an assumption, but Mr. Macaulay's positive 
 assertion that he was employed is certainly unwarranted. 
 
 But Mr. Macaulay assumes much more than the fact of 
 
 * Tablet, March 10th, 1849.
 
 27 
 
 agency; lie asserts not only that Penn was employed, but 
 employed in order to " terrify, caress, or bribe the College 
 " into submission." If this was the task imposed on him, he 
 certainly did not fulfil it, nor even attempt to fulfil it, for 
 though, says Wilniot, " he at first hoped to persuade the 
 " fellows to comply with the King's wishes, yet, when he heard 
 " the statement of the case," that is, when he ascertained the 
 true facts, " he was satisfied that they could not comply with- 
 " out a breach of their oaths, and wrote a letter to the King 
 " on their behalf." 
 
 Again, when Mr. Macaulay says that Penn, having " too 
 " much good feeling to approve of the violent and unjust pro- 
 " ceedings of the government" (wonderful admission !) " even 
 "ventured to express part of what he thought," it would have 
 been well to have stated what part of his thoughts he can 
 have concealed. The fellows allege their oath as their excuse 
 for disobedience, this excuse they represent to Penn, who 
 boldly and plainly repeats it to the King. " Their case," he 
 says, " was hard," " they could not yield obedience without a 
 " breach of their oaths," " such mandates were a force on 
 " conscience." " What more could he or any one have said?" 
 and what other of James's courtiers, who vied in his desertion 
 and in fawning on his successor, when the " courtly Quaker" 
 had courage to declare that the fallen monarch " had been 
 " his Mend and his father's friend,"* would have dared to say 
 as much ? 
 
 Next, as to the letter addressed to Bailey, and attributed 
 to Penn : in the first place, there is no proof, or rather no 
 probability, that this letter was his writing. It bears no sig- 
 nature, he never acknowledged any share in it, it is not 
 alluded to as his by Hough in his account of the Windsor 
 conference, and though Wilmot seems to suppose he never 
 denied it, there is good reason to believe he did, inasmuch as 
 
 * Penn's Speech before the Lords of the Council, 1688 : Life prefixed to Works, 
 p. 139.
 
 28 
 
 the cotemporaiy copy of the proceedings in this case, pre- 
 served in the archives of Magdalen College, bears on the 
 margin of this letter a manuscript memorandum, " Mr. Penn 
 " disowned this." Moreover, its very wording, the terms " Sir 
 " and Majesty," are contrary to his notorious scruples and style 
 of vnitinsr. Mr. Macaulav does indeed state, either on the 
 authority of this anonymous epistle, or his own imagination, 
 that " titles and phrases against which he had borne his testi- 
 " mony dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen ;" and 
 possibly the fact that such phrases were inconsistent with his 
 profession, and therefore with his sincerity, may be in Mr. 
 Macaulay's mind reason why he should ascribe them to Penn, 
 but as no other occasion is recorded in which they fell from 
 him, and as no motive can be imagined for him to have thus 
 belied the scruples of a life, for which he had so often suffered 
 (nor indeed for him to conceal his name at all,) their use in 
 this case would appear to be strong internal evidence against 
 his authorship. 
 
 But even supposing that it is fair to charge him with the 
 contents of this document, which plainly it is not, they by no 
 means justify Mr. Macaulay's insinuations of " intimidation," 
 attempts to " seduce the College from the path of right," to 
 " frighten the Magdalen men," &c. 
 
 So far from the letter having given such ideas to Dr. 
 Bailey, he grounds his guess that it was Penn's on " its 
 " charitable purpose" making it " seem to have been written 
 " by one who had been already so kind as to appear on their 
 " behalf," and was "reported by all who knew him to employ 
 " much of his time in doing good to mankind, and using 
 " his credit with his Majesty to undeceive him in any wrong 
 " impression." 
 
 It is a pity Mr. Macaulav has not quoted this reply of 
 Bailey, his readers could then have judged how far the im- 
 pression he gives of Penn's conduct was that felt by the 
 parties most interested.
 
 29 
 
 Lastly, comes the final interview at Windsor, in Mr. 
 Macaulay's account of which the incorrect notion given by 
 his disregard of time and place is plain enough. 
 
 Any one of his readers would suppose that this interview 
 was sought by Perm in performance of his office of seduction. 
 " He did not succeed in frightening the Magdalen men," so 
 he " tried a gentler tone/' and accordingly " had an interview 
 " with Hough/' &c, and "began to hint at a compromise." 
 Who would imagine, after reading such sentences as these, 
 that this conference took place, not at the College, but at 
 Windsor, a deputation of the fellows going forty miles to see 
 the Quaker, more than a month after the interview at Oxford, 
 and six days after the date of Bailey's letter, in consequence 
 of whose entreaty for his intercession it was probably held? 
 
 Nor are the distortions by Mr. Macaulay of Bishop Hough's 
 report of this interview less evident .* 
 
 " Mr. Macaulay represents Penn as employed to solicit the 
 " fellows ; Dr. Hough represents the fellows as coming to 
 " solicit him. 
 
 " Mr. Macaulay says that, after many professions of friend- 
 " ship, Penn ' began to hint at a compromise / Dr. Hough 
 " ' thanks God he did not so much as offer at any proposal by 
 " way of accommodation, which was the thing I most dreaded.' 
 
 " Mr. Macaulay makes his readers believe that the topics 
 " urged by Penn were urged to persuade them to compromise ; 
 " Dr. Hough describes them as used to convince the fellows 
 "that there was little hope of success from his intercession. 
 
 " Mr. Macaulay represents Penn as trying to overcome the 
 " scruples of the fellows to the commission of perjury ; Dr. 
 " Hough represents him as admitting that the fellows gave 
 "satisfactory answers to his ' objections.' 
 
 " Mr. Macaulay represents Penn as talking the merest 
 
 * These differences between the two writers are so clearly given in the critic pre- 
 viously alluded to (Tablet, March 10th, 1849,) that they hardly admit of alteration 
 and are therefore quoted at length in the text.
 
 30 
 
 " drivel; relying solely on James's moderation, and willing to 
 " give the ' Papists' two or three colleges in mere wanton in- 
 " justice; Dr. Hough (most unwillingly) shows that Penn 
 u thought the l Papists' had a right to two or three colleges, 
 " and believed they would abstain from further demands be- 
 " cause it would be dangerous to ask for more. 
 
 " Mr. Macaulay describes the result of the interview as the 
 " ' breaking off of a negotiation' by the fellows ; Dr. Hough 
 " describes it as the concession of a favour by Penn. 
 
 " In short, in every part of it, in general and in detail, no 
 " version of the interview could be imagined or invented more 
 " remote from the truth than that given by Mr. Macaulay. It 
 "is true that when somebody mentioned the Bishop of 
 " Oxford's indisposition, Penn ' smiling' asked the fellows how 
 " they would like Hough to be made a Bishop. This remark, 
 "made as a joke, answered by Mr/Cradock as a joke, and — 
 even by Dr. Hough, who answered it more seriously, not 
 taken as an ' offer at any proposal by way of accommoda- 
 tion' — this casual piece of jocosity ; picked out of a three 
 hours' conversation ; reported by one interlocutor without 
 " the privity of the other ; and, if taken seriously, at variance 
 " with every other part of the conversation, and unconnected 
 " with its general tenor, is gravely brought forward as a proof 
 " that a man otherwise honest, deliberately intended to use 
 " ' simony' as a bait to tempt a divine to what both parties 
 " knew to be ' perjury.' 
 
 " If Mr. Macaulay were Crown counsel arguing for Penn's 
 " conviction before a common jury, such a ' point' would be 
 too gross even for the license of the Old Bailey. But if 
 this be admitted as a canon, not of the venal advocate, 
 but of the grave historian, who, by virtue of his function, 
 " is bound to judicial soberness and impartiality, God help 
 " the characters of all honest men." 
 
 Before leaving this case, it may be well to quote Sewell's 
 notice of it in his " Historv of the Quakers," in order that 
 
 (C 
 
 it 
 
 it 
 
 a
 
 31 
 
 the reader may observe how completely Wilmot's account is 
 confirmed, and Mr. Macaulay's contradicted, by an entirely 
 independent narrator, who was, as Clarkson says, " then in 
 "correspondence with Penn, knowing almost every thing 
 " relating to him as it happened, and who must have obtained 
 " his information from sources quite distinct from Wilmot, 
 "none of the documents quoted by the latter having been 
 " published till after his death." 
 
 " The King having thus granted liberty of conscience to 
 " people of all persuasions," says Sewell,"* " did whatever he 
 " could to introduce Popery in England, for he permitted the 
 " Jesuits to erect a College in the Savoy at London, and suf- 
 " fered the fryars to go publickly in the dress of their monas- 
 " tical orders. This was a very strange sight to Protestants in 
 " England, and it caused no small fermentation in the minds 
 " of people, when the fellows of Magdalen College, at Oxford, 
 " were by the King's order dispossessed, to make way for 
 " Romanists. This was such a gross usurpation, that W. Penn, 
 " who had ready access to the King, and who endeavoured to 
 " get the penal laws and test abrogated, thinking it possible to 
 " find out a way, whereby to limit the Papists so effectually 
 " that they should not be able to prevail, did, for all that, not 
 " omitto blame this usurpation at Oxford, and to tell the King, 
 " that it was an act which could not in justice be defended ; 
 " since the general liberty of conscience did not allow of de- 
 " priving any of their property, who did what they ought to do, 
 " as the fellows of the said College appeared to have done." 
 
 Objection might possibly be made to this testimony of Sewell, 
 if taken by itself, though hardly with reason, inasmuch as his 
 reputation for honesty as a historian is unquestioned, and his 
 feeling as a Dutchman and a Protestant, in favour of William 
 and his policy, and in opposition to James (abundantly 
 shown in his work,) was such as would counteract any bias to 
 which his Quakerism and friendship for Penn might expose 
 
 * Sewell, p. 609.
 
 32 
 
 him; but certainly, as corroborative evidence, such testimony 
 is as indisputable as strong. 
 
 Surely, then, an examination into the true facts of this 
 Oxford business makes it not unjust to Mr. Macaulay to assert, 
 that his charges against Penn of "intimidation/' of being a 
 " broker in simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind/' of en- 
 deavours "to tempt a divine to perjury," to "terrify or bribe" 
 men to forsake " the path of right," are all groundless ; that 
 his statement, that even in the first instance he was employed 
 by the Court, is unproved; and that the impression given, 
 that he was its agent in the last and most important interview, 
 is the very reverse of the truth, the requests for his interces- 
 sion, which his reputation for "doing good to mankind," and 
 honest struggles to "undeceive" the King, induced such men 
 as Bailey to make to him, being construed, as in the case of 
 Kiffin, into attempts on his part to seduce and efforts to 
 frighten. 
 
 It would be hard to find any other history in which the 
 very virtues of a man are thus twisted into grounds for the 
 most injurious attacks upon his character. 
 
 But however unwarranted these attacks, this much must be 
 allowed, that the tone of Hough's letter does give ground to 
 believe that he regarded Penn with some suspicion, as a sup- 
 posed supporter of the King's general policy, and possible par- 
 ticipator in his designs against the interests of the Protestant 
 Church. It remains, therefore, to be considered how far this 
 suspicion, which indeed forms the sole excuse for Mr. Macaulay' s 
 strictures, was justified — on what facts it was groimded, and 
 whether these facts were in themselves discreditable or not. 
 In order to reply to these questions, a few remarks respecting 
 Penn's connection with the Court, and its cause, will be needed. 
 
 When James came to the throne, there were in the prisons 
 of his kingdom about 1400* Quakers, more than 200 of them 
 
 * Petition of Quakers to Parliament, 1GS5 ; Sewell, p. 588 ; and Petition to the 
 King, id. p. 592.
 
 33 
 
 women, unoffending people, forced by the very tenets of that 
 faith for which they suffered to be loyal subjects and peaceable 
 citizens, whose sole alleged crime was their obedience to the 
 voice of conscience. For this obedience, from the time they 
 had first gathered together as a sect, each religious party, as 
 it gained political sway, had measured its power by their 
 persecution. As Penn said, when stating their wrongs to the 
 Parliament of 1679, they had been as the "common whipping- 
 " stock of the kingdom : all laws had been let loose upon 
 " them, as if the design had been, not to reform, but to destroy 
 " them." 
 
 George Fox, their founder and leader, would have been 
 qualified to draw up a report of the state of the gaols of the 
 island, so universal and experimental was his acquaintance 
 with them, and a sad list it would have shown of noisome holes 
 and stifling dungeons, for those were days in which Prison 
 Reform had been in truth but little agitated. More than 320* 
 Quakers had died in confinement between 1660 and James's 
 accession; at that very time many "were tending towards 
 "their destruction;'' and very shortly before "several poor 
 " innocent tradesmen had been so suffocated by the closeness 
 " of Newgate, that they had been taken out sick of a malignant 
 " fever, and had died in a few days."f Nor were their suffer- 
 ings restricted to imprisonment : their meetings for worship 
 were dispersed, their wives and daughters ill-treated, their 
 goods spoiled, often " not a bed left to rest upon ;" informers — 
 hardened wretches, their own consciences long seared in sin 
 — were set upon them, encouraged to turn their consciences 
 to profit, to make merchandise of their misery. These blood- 
 hounds of the law were the missionaries — sanguinary enact- 
 ments were the arguments employed in the conversion of the 
 Quaker alike by cavalier parson and puritan preacher. 
 
 Few persecutions, indeed, have been more cruel or severe 
 than that endured by the first generation of the " Friends," 
 
 * Petition, Sewcll, p. 588. t Croese, p. 101. 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 and in none have the patience and faithfulness of its victims 
 been exceeded. History records no instance in which they, 
 any one of them, denied or concealed their principles, or 
 attempted to retaliate on their oppressors. Thus long and 
 fiercely had the storm of bigotry raged against Penn's fellow- 
 religionists, nor had he himself fled from its fury. Bravely had 
 he borne up against it. Four times he had been imprisoned, 
 twice sent to the tower ; once at the instigation of the Bishop 
 of London, he had, for writing a book in defence of his faith, 
 been immured there in close confinement, none of his friends 
 allowed access to him : his father, the old Admiral, whose 
 distaste to enthusiasm was almost equal to Mr. Macaulay's, 
 managed to inform him "that the Bishop was resolved he 
 " should either publicly recant or die a prisoner. 5 ' " Tell my 
 " father," he replied, " that my prison shall be my grave before 
 " I will budge a jot, for I owe my conscience to no mortal man. 
 " I have no need to fear. God will make amends for all ! ; '* 
 Once, indeed, he did succeed in defeating the malice of his 
 foes, when, after having been kept untried some months in 
 Newgate, he was brought to the bar of the Old Bailey, and, 
 thanks to his own ability and courage, acquitted. That famous 
 trial would alone explain the fact, which is so puzzling to 
 Mr. Macaulay, the honour paid to his name by posterity, for 
 it is hard to say how much of our present religious freedom is 
 not due to a defence which so ably proved that the rights of 
 conscience are inseparable from the civil liberties of a British 
 
 citizen.t 
 
 But at length there was a ray of hope for this despised and 
 persecuted people. The justice and mercy which had been 
 denied to them, when demanded on public grounds, they had 
 
 * Life prefixed to Works, p. 6. 
 
 t See " The People's Ancient and Just Liberties asserted in the Trial of William 
 Penn and William Mead, at the Old Bailey, September, 1670."'— Works, vol. i. p. 7. 
 — This trial, in fact, gave occasion to proceedings against Bushel, the foreman of the 
 jury, in which Lord Chief Justice Vaughan pronounced his noble vindication of the 
 right of jurors to deliver a free verdict, which by giving independence to juries, made 
 the institution so effectual a protection to the liberty of the subject. — See Bushel's 
 Case, VwuffJian's Reports, p. 135.
 
 35 
 
 some reasons to look for as boons to private friendship, " for 
 " between the new Sovereign and Penn there had long been 
 " a famihar acquaintance."* The Admiral had, on his death- 
 bed, besought the Duke of York to protect his son, and James 
 had honestly fulfilled his promise to a beloved and faithful 
 servant, and indeed had already shown his goodwill by pro- 
 curing Penn's liberation from the Tower. t 
 
 The Quaker had therefore a friend at court, if he chose to 
 use his influence, and most culpable would he have been if he 
 had neglected to do so, seeing how much and for what purpose 
 it was needed. Hence it was that he "became a courtier,";]; 
 and, so great was the affection and esteem of his Sovereign, 
 " almost a favourite. He was every day summoned from the 
 " gallery into the closet, and sometimes had long audiences, 
 " while peers were kept waiting in the ante-chambers. It Avas 
 " noised abroad that he had more real power to help and hurt 
 " than manv nobles who filled high offices. He was soon sur- 
 " rounded by flatterers and suppliants. His house at Kensing- 
 " ton was sometimes thronged, at his hour of rising, by more 
 " than 200 suitors." Mr. Macaulay quotes in his margin the 
 passage in Croese's "Historia Quakeriania" describing these 
 levies, but not that explaining their cause. " When the carry- 
 " ing on these affairs required expenses at Court for writings 
 " and drawing out of things into acts, copyings, fees, and other 
 " moneys which are due, or at least are usually paid, Penn," 
 says Croese, " so discreetly managed matters, that out of his 
 " own, which he had in abundance, he liberally discharged all 
 " emergent expenses." § No wonder that a courtier, who, in 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. p 506. t Penn's Letter to Popple. 
 
 X Macaulay, vol. i. p. 506. 
 
 § Croese, Cotempnrary English Translation, book ii. p. 107. The Latin is 
 as follows: — "At qui hie, cum magni in his negotiis sumptus essent faeiendi, in aula, 
 in cuiiis, pro scripturis, pro relationilms in acta, ex iisque repetition bus, pro 
 cerariis, pro caeteris pecuniis, quae sic debent, et etsi non debent, tainen solent solvi. 
 Pennus haec omnia ita tractabat, ut qiiemadmudum ei facilitates abunde suppetebemt, 
 ita lUwaliter ad onn ia ha>c sumptusfaceret.'' — Gerardi Croesi, // istori i Quak< mi na , 
 lib. ii p. 370. 
 
 n 2
 
 36 
 
 those days of universal and unblushing corruption, not only 
 did not sell his influence, but actually paid out of his own 
 pocket the expenses of his petitioners, had them rush in crowds 
 to his gates. This passage, which Mr. Macaulay does not 
 quote, immediately follows one which he does, but, as it is 
 scarcely reconcileable with the estimate his after remarks show 
 him to have formed of Penn's conduct, it is not surprising 
 that he makes no mention of it. 
 
 " The first use,""* however, " which he made of his credit" 
 — his successful efforts to procure the liberation of the 1400 
 captive Quakers, he allows " to have been highly commend- 
 " able." But this success did not and indeed could not satisfy 
 him: his friends were pardoned by the King's mercy, but 
 there was no security that the unjust laws which had im- 
 prisoned them would not be again enforced. Nor was it for 
 the relief of his own persuasion alone that he laboured for 
 the repeal of the penal laws, but in order to ensure to all his 
 fellow-countrymen, permission to worship their God as they 
 pleased. The fact is, he was an enthusiast in the cause of 
 religious liberty: it was a cause for which, ever since he had 
 arrived at manhood, he had been talking, writing, suffering. 
 
 "Freedom in things relating to conscienee,"t was his pe- 
 tition to the Earl of Orrery, in his earliest letter on record, 
 written in his twenty-third year ; and three years after, when 
 " a prisoner for conscience sake in Newgate, 1 ' he wrote his 
 " Great Case of Liberty of Conscience," claiming it as " the 
 " undoubted right" of all, " by the law of God, of nature, and 
 " of our own country." J 
 
 These were rare notions in those days, when the virtue of 
 bigotry was preached and practised alike by Independent, 
 Presbyterian, and Episcopalian ; when liberty to serve God 
 their own way, and to force others to do the same, were the 
 aims of each of the three great divisions of British Protestants. 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. p. 508. t Life prefixed to Works, p. 3. 
 
 X Penn's, vol. i. p. 443.
 
 37 
 
 Especially did they all three agree in a firm belief in their duty 
 to persecute the Papists. Catholics and Quakers, professing as 
 it were the two extremes of Christianity, they often met in 
 the dungeon, and thus it was that, in 1678, when Churchmen 
 and Dissenters forgot their mutual hatred in their frenzied 
 fear of the Popish plot, they could yet spare some cruelty for 
 the poor " Friends." The memory of the Marian persecution 
 gives some ground, if not excuse, for their hatred of the 
 Romanists, but why they should include the Quakers in their 
 wrath it is hard to determine, unless indeed their avowed 
 respect for the conscience even of a Papist was so unaccount- 
 able, that it could only be ascribed to a concealed adherence 
 to his faith. 
 
 Hence possibly the reason that many of them, and Penn 
 especially, were often called Papists — Jesuits in disguise. 
 Nevertheless, spite of this prejudice, and at the very height 
 of the anti-Popery fury, he yet, when protesting before a 
 Committee of Parliament against the " injustice of whipping 
 " Quakers for Papists,"* ventured to add that he did not 
 " think it fit that even Papists should be whipt for their 
 " consciences, for such arguments," he said, " did not seem to 
 " him to be convincing, or indeed adequate to the reason of 
 " mankind." Such words as these seem to us simple truisms, 
 but those who have read Mr. Macaulay's vivid description of 
 the Reign of Terror, resulting from the professed disclosures 
 of the Popish Plot, will feel that only a man who feared 
 God, and no one else, would have dared to speak them before 
 the Parliament of 1678. 
 
 So then Penn might well say, in his letter to Popple, t 
 " that liberty of conscience is the first step to have a religion. 
 " This is no new opinion with me. I have writ many apologies 
 " within the last twenty years to defend it;" but he adds, as 
 though anticipating the publication of Mr. Macaulay's History, 
 
 * Life prefixed to Works, vol. i. p. 118. 
 
 t Works, vol. i. p. 136. This letter was written October 24th, 1688.
 
 38 
 
 yet " did I never once think of promoting any sort of liberty 
 " of conscience for any body which did not preserve the com- 
 " mon Protestancy of the kingdom and the ancient rights of 
 " the government ; for to say truth, the one cannot be main- 
 " tained without the other." 
 
 This sentence recalls us to the question at issue. Did " his 
 " enthusiasm for one great principle" in reality "impel him to 
 " violate other great principles which he ought to have held 
 " sacred ?"* Did he, in his zeal for liberty of conscience, 
 forget the liberties of the subject, or try to undermine the 
 Protestant religion ? 
 
 Fairly to consider this question, we must put ourselves in 
 his position, and view the circumstances around him, not 
 by the light which after events have cast upon them, but by 
 that with which we should have seen them from his point of 
 view. 
 
 His position was in truth a peculiar one. The faith in 
 which the King was a sincere, though a superstitious believer, 
 was a persecuted religion ; to repeal, therefore, those penal 
 laws, which, in punishing all want of conformity with the 
 established Church, pressed so heavily on the Papists, became 
 the object of his reign. The interests of his religion compelled 
 him to appear at least to believe in the great principle of 
 religious freedom : whether he did so in truth is certainly 
 questionable. Mr. Macaulay takes great pains to show that 
 he did not, that throughout he was at heart a bigot, wanting 
 the power not the will to rekindle the fires of Smithfield. 
 James's general character certainly does not disprove this 
 charge, nor again, on the other side, do the facts of history 
 prove it, for the persecutions of the Dissenters during the 
 early part of his reign might have arisen not so much from 
 religious as political hatred to the party which had sent his 
 father to the scaffold and himself into exile, and was even then 
 in actual rebellion or undisguised opposition against his pre- 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. p. 507.
 
 39 
 
 rotative. Probably liis exact motives will never be ascertained, 
 nor is it of importance that they should be ; enough for our 
 purpose, that Penn had good reason for giving faith to his 
 professions, for, so far as his own experience went, he had 
 proved their sincerity. " Whatever practices of Roman 
 " Catholics we might," he says, in his letter to Popple, 
 " reasonably object against, and no doubt but such there are, 
 " yet he (the King) has disclaimed and reprehended these ill 
 " things by his declared opinion against persecution, by the 
 " ease in which he actually indulges all Dissenters, and by the 
 " confirmation he offers in Parliament for the security of the 
 " Protestant religion and. liberty of conscience. And in his 
 " houour, as well as in my own defence, I am obliged, in con- 
 " science to say that he has ever declared to me, it was his 
 " opinion, and on all occasions when Duke, he never refused me 
 " the repeated proofs of it, as often as I had any poor sufferer 
 " for conscience sake to solicit his help for.'' 
 
 But even had Penn doubted the King's word, which plainly 
 he had no reason to do, he would have acted very foolishly 
 not to have turned it to advantage, for his cause wanted all the 
 help it could gain. By an accident, as it were, the riding party 
 was for him, but its tenure of power was uncertain, depend- 
 ing solely on the King's rule, and against him were com- 
 bined the two great parties, between whom had hitherto alter- 
 nated all political sway. The High Church Tory supported 
 the penal laws, because he thought it his duty to persecute 
 both Papist and Puritan; the Puritan Whig wished indeed 
 to repeal them for his own sect, but to continue them for the 
 Catholic, for though now under oppression himself, the tra- 
 ditions of Quakers imprisoned during the Commonwealth, 
 and still later of Catholics hunted to death at the cry of Oatea 
 and his pack of informers, were memories of joys too sweet to 
 induce liini to forego all hope of oppressing others. W lint , 
 then, Avas the course for a man to take, who, like Penn, was 
 anxious to secure to all his fellow -subjects the freedom which
 
 40 
 
 he claimed for himself ? He could join neither of the parties 
 in opposition ; he knew them both too well ; he himself owed 
 a close confinement in the tower to a bishop, and not ten years 
 before he had been forced to protest against laws made " by 
 " the Whig Parliament" against Papists, but unjustly turned 
 against his friends,* at which time also he would remember 
 that the Puritans in New England had proved what he might 
 expect from puritan rule, for " persecution," says Sewell, 
 ' ' being then (1677) hot in Old England, it made those in New 
 " England the worse, insomuch that they did not only whip 
 " the Quakers that were there, but also some masters of ships 
 " that were no Quakers, only for bringing some of that per- 
 " suasion thither."t Plainly, then, his part was to do precisely 
 what he did do, namely, first to support the King in his 
 efforts to give present freedom of opinion, and then to do his 
 utmost to secure this freedom for the future, by basing it not 
 upon the caprice or life of the sovereign, but the firm founda- 
 tion of a law secured by the concurrence of the people, ex- 
 pressed by Parliament. To gain this concurrence he struggled 
 hard, by appealing to the common sense of the nation, and to 
 the true interests of all parties, for doing which he reaped 
 the unfailing reward of interference with prejudice, abuse 
 from them all; but, though accused often enough by an 
 " un discerning multitude of being a papist, nay, a Jesuit," J 
 and suspected even by such men as Hough of a wish to sub- 
 vert the Protestant Church, the one charge was as true as the 
 other, and his assailants may be defied to produce evidence 
 that he either advised or supported any attack by the King 
 on the religion or rights or property of his subjects. 
 
 So far from desiring to supplant Protestant by Papal supre- 
 macy, his writings abundantly prove that he always felt and 
 advocated the necessity of providing against the possibility of 
 such change. 
 
 • Life prefixed to Works, vol. i. p. 117. t Sewell, p. 567. 
 
 X Macaulay, vol.i. p. 506.
 
 41 
 
 In a pamphlet* he published in 1679, he dwelt much on 
 the distinction which their obedience to the foreign power of 
 the Pope made between the Catholic and the Protestant Dis- 
 senter, and in 1687, during the heat of the ferment caused 
 by the Royal measures, in his " Good Advice to the Church 
 " of England, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Dissenter, in 
 11 which it is endeavoured to be made appear that it is their 
 " Duty, Principle, and Interest to abolish the Penal Laws and 
 " Tests/'t he declares positively that " a toleration, and no 
 " more, is that which all Romanists ought to be satisfied 
 "with." J In fact, every word in his writings confirms the 
 statement in Hough's letter, that though he was in advance 
 of his age even so far as to conceive that the members of the 
 Church of England should not alone be " capable of giving 
 " their children a learned education," yet he " always declared 
 " his opinion that the preferments of the Church should not be 
 " put into any other hands but such as they at present are in." 
 Se well's testimony to the same effect has already been quoted, 
 viz., that though he "endeavoured to get the penal laws and 
 " test abrogated," he yet thought " it possible to find out a 
 " way whereby to limit the Papists so effectually that they 
 " should not be able to prevail." § 
 
 Nor even in that most difficult question of the Declaration 
 of Indulgence can Penn's conduct fairlv be blamed. That 
 famous act, the persistance in which was the immediate cause 
 of James's loss of his crown, may be designated as an attempt 
 to attain a good end by bad means. The penal laws were a 
 disgrace to the Statute-book and a grievous oppression to 
 many of his subjects. James suspended them, but without 
 the consent of his Parliament, by a simple exertion of his 
 prerogative. Liberty of conscience, therefore, was obtained 
 by an unconstitutional encroachment on the liberty of the 
 subject. It was received by the members of the Church, both 
 
 * Project for the good of England. Works, vol. i. pp. 682 to 691. 
 
 t Works, vol. ii. p. 749. t Idem, vol. ii. p. 768. § Idem, p. 606.
 
 42 
 
 lay and clerical, with universal terror and indignation ; the 
 Dissenters were divided as to its reception ; some feared and 
 suspected the giver too much to thank him for his boon, which 
 others hailed, regardless of the motive which might have in- 
 duced him to offer it. Penn was among the grateful ones. 
 " Our sufferings," he said, in presenting the Quaker's ad- 
 dress, " would have moved stones to compassion, so we should 
 " be harder if we were not moved to gratitude."* For feeling 
 and expressing this gratitude he incurs the reproach of Mr. 
 Macaulay, but a little consideration will show how strange it 
 would have been if he had acted otherwise. Mr. Macaulay 
 himself acknowledges that when the King thus tried to bribe 
 the Nonconformists to aid him, the Church suddenly became 
 tolerant, and sought to outbid him,f offering them legal 
 toleration, a Parliamentary indulgence, provided they would 
 help to maintain the enactments against the Catholics. To 
 many of the Dissenters the offer of the Church was the most 
 tempting ; their hatred to Rome, their suspicion of the King's 
 sincerity, their distrust of his power, all induced them to 
 accept it ; but very different motives would influence Penn : 
 his earnest desire was not to persecute but to tolerate the 
 Papist ; he had, as has been stated above, no ground to sus- 
 pect the King, but he had good ground to fear the Church, 
 for he had suffered from its power, and to suspect its offer, 
 for he could not be sure that his friends would benefit by it. 
 Cavaliers and Roundheads, Whig and Tory Parliaments, had 
 each proved their hostility to the Quakers, how then could he 
 trust that an act passed by an union between Whigs and 
 Tories would not exclude his clients from relief? Can we 
 then wonder that, to so uncertain a future hope, he preferred 
 a certain present gain ? 
 
 Surely, if Mr. Macaulay had recalled to his memory the 
 vast difference which the Puritan persecution of the Quakers 
 
 * Sewell, p. 609. t Macaulay, vol. ii. pp. 219 to 222.
 
 43 
 
 made, as lie had himself previously shown,* between their 
 position and that of the other Dissenters, he would not, in 
 order to explain Perm's support of a measure which gave his 
 friends the justice they could expect no where else, be com- 
 pelled to imagine that " the life which he had been leading 
 " during two years had not a little impaired his moral sensi- 
 
 " bility."t 
 
 Seeing, therefore, what was Iris experience of the mercy and 
 justice of Parliaments — the laws which had been passed in the 
 last reign, and that even during this, the petition to Parlia- 
 ment for his captive brethren had been of no avail, while that 
 to the King had resulted in their freedom, li his conscience" 
 could scarcely have "reproached him" % if he had supported 
 his Sovereign in his defence of the constitution, for what to 
 him was a constitution which punished him for worshipping 
 his God? 
 
 But even this he did not do : he not only did not uphold 
 the King in any attempt to rule without the aid of Parlia- 
 ment, but, on the contrary, he throughout advised him 
 against such a course. This fact is not alluded to by Mr. 
 Macaulay, though twice stated by Sir James Mackintosh, to 
 whose authority he generally pays the attention it deserves. 
 "Penn," says Mackintosh, § quoting Johnstone's correspon- 
 dence of 6th February, 1688, " desired a Parliament, as the 
 " only mode of establishing toleration without subverting the 
 " laws." Again he says, that after the second proclamation of 
 the Declaration of Indulgence (April, 1688,) he " desired a 
 " Parliament, from a hope that, if the convocation were not 
 " too long delayed, it might produce a compromise, in which 
 " the King might, for the time, be contented with an universal 
 " toleration of worship. "If The wording of the address he 
 presented of the yearly meeting of Quakers confirms this view, 
 
 * Macaulay, vol i. p. 503. t Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 224. t Idem. 
 
 § Mackintosh, p. 219. U Idem. p. 241.
 
 44 
 
 inasmuch as, while thanking the King for his " Christian 
 " Declaration for Liberty of Conscience," "it looks forward to 
 " such a concurrence from Parliament as may secure it to 
 " their posterity in after times. "* " "lis plain, therefore/' 
 says Besse, in his Life, prefixed to Penn's Works, " they, the 
 " Quakers, gratefully accepted of the suspension of the penal 
 laws by the King's prerogative (as who in their case would 
 not ?) a thing in itself just and reasonable, in hopes of having 
 the same afterwards confirmed by the legislative authority, 
 u there being at that time much talk of an approaching Parlia- 
 " ment, and that their expectation centred not in the King's 
 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 * 
 
 Life prefixed to Works, vol. i. p. 130. As this address is probably one of 
 those which Mr. M. alludes to as " fulsomely servile" (vol. ii. p. 225.) It is here 
 given in order that the reader may judge how far this epithet is applicable. 
 
 The Address. 
 To King James the Second over England, &c. 
 
 The Humble and Grateful Acknowledgment of His Peaceable Subjects called 
 Quakers, in this Kingdom. 
 
 From their usual Yearly Meeting in London, the Nineteenth Day of the Third 
 Month, vulgarly called May, 1687. 
 
 We cannot but bless and praise the name of Almighty God, who hath the hearts of 
 princes in his hand, that he hath inclined the King to hear the cries of his suffering 
 subjects for conscience sake : And we rejoice that instead of troubling him with 
 complaints of our sufferings, he hath given us so eminent an occasion to present him 
 with our thanks : And since it hath pleased the King, out of his great compassion, 
 thus to commiserate our afflicted condition, which hath so particularly appeared by 
 his gracious proclamation and warrants last year, whereby twelve hundred prisoners 
 were released from their severe imprisonments, and many others from spoil and ruin 
 in their estates and properties ; and his princely speech in council, and Christian 
 declaration for liberty of conscience, in which he doth not only express his aversion 
 to all force upon conscience, and grant all his dissenting subjects an ample liberty to 
 worship God, in the way they are persuaded is most agreeable to his will, but gives 
 them his Kingly word the same shall continue during his reign; we do (as our 
 friends of this city have already done) render the King our humble, Christian, and 
 thankful acknowledgments, not only in behalf of our selves, but with respect to our 
 friends throughout England and Wales. And pray God with all our hearts to bless 
 and preserve thee, King, and those under thee, in so good a work : And as we can 
 assure the King it is well accepted in the several counties from whence we came, so 
 we hope the good effects thereof, for the peace, trade, and prosperity of the kingdom, 
 will produce such a concurrence from the Parliament, as may secure it to our posterity 
 in after-times : And while we live, it shall be our endeavour (through God's grace) 
 to demean our selves, as in conscience to God, and duty to the King, we are oblig'd, 
 
 His peaceable, loving, and faithful subjects
 
 45 
 
 " dispensing power is evident by our author's continuing his 
 " endeavours to show the necessity of abolishing the penal 
 " laws, for soon after this he writ a large tract, called ' Good 
 " Advice to the Church of England/ &c."* 
 
 One word more about this Declaration of Indulgence : 
 Mr. Macaulay says Penn tried to gain William's assent to it, 
 " sent copious disquisitions to the Hague, and even went there, 
 " in the hope that his eloquence, of which he had a high 
 " opinion, would prove irresistible."f All this is gratuitous 
 assumption, for which indeed the author quotes Burnet, but 
 had he read him, he would see that Penn's argument with the 
 Prince J was about the abolition of the Test, and that the 
 Declaration of Indulgence was not then named, nor is it men- 
 tioned till several pages afterwards, § and had he condescended 
 to glance at Clarkson's Life, he would have learnt that this 
 journey to the Continent, which, by the way, was a religious 
 mission to both Holland and Germany, was during the year 
 1686, while the Declaration, it is well known, was not in 
 existence till April, 1687. Had he also observed the follow- 
 ing passage, in one of those letters from Van Citters, the 
 Dutch ambassador, from which he so often quotes, which 
 proves that Penn's eloquence was exerted the year before the 
 Declaration, and simply in regard to toleration, he would, 
 though losing an opportunity for a sneer at the Quaker, have 
 been saved from so glaring a chronological mistake : — "With 
 " regard to the point of toleration," writes Van Citters, West- 
 minster, as Sot. 1686, "it is reported here that both his High- 
 " ness and my Lady the Princess have declared in favour of it, 
 " and that this will be reported in the next Parliament, and 
 " that they have discoursed at length thereon with the well- 
 " known Pen, the arch Quaker, who is Governor of Pemisyl- 
 
 * Life prefixed to Works, vol. i. p. 131. (1726.) 
 + Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 234. 
 
 % Burnet's Own Times, vol. i. p. 693. (Ed. 1724.) 
 § Idem, p. 714.
 
 46 
 
 " vania, and have declared themselves to this extent on that 
 " subject."* 
 
 The reader will now be able to judge how far the epithet 
 " intemperate/' f applied by Mr. Macaulay to Penn's labours 
 for religious liberty, is warranted by the history of his con- 
 duct. Not only does that history give no evidence that he 
 abetted the Court in any act of cruelty or injustice, or con- 
 spired with it in any plot to rob the Church or establish 
 tyranny, but it does give evidence that he opposed both such 
 special acts and such general policy. His remonstrance with 
 the King against his attempt to despoil Magdalen College has 
 been stated above — his desire that he should not dispense 
 with Parliament has just been mentioned. Johnstone, more- 
 over, in his Correspondence, J expressly states that he advised 
 
 * A an Syn Hoogheyt en den Raedpensionaris van Hollant. 
 
 • Westminster den, n,, -^ ' 1686. 
 
 Aengaende het point der Tollerantie werthiernn opently voorgegeven, dat soo syn 
 Hoogheyt als Mevrouw de Princes haer daer voeren souden verclaert hebben, en dat 
 men in het aenstaende Parlement dat mede soo debiteren zal, en dat hoogstgedaghte 
 syn hoogheyt met den bekenden Pen die Archiquaecker, wie patron is van Pensil- 
 vania in America, daerover in 't lange soude gesproken hebben, en denselve hem 
 dien aengaende diermaten, soude verclaert hebben. 
 
 + Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 241. This charge of intemperance had been made against 
 Penn in his life-time, and his spirited defence is worth quoting : — Some " nameless 
 author had charged him with showing in the Jate reign an intemperate zeal for a 
 boundless liberty of conscience. Not more intemperate," he replied, " in the reign 
 that favoured it than in the reign I contended with that did not favour it. And no 
 man but a persecutor, which I count a beast of prey, and a declared enemy to man- 
 kind, can, without great injustice or ingratitude, reproach that part I had in King 
 James's court ; for I think I may say without vanity, upon this provocation, I 
 endeavoured at least to do some good, at my own cost, and would have been glad to 
 have done more. I am very sure I intended, and I think I did harm to none, 
 neither parties nor private persons, my own family excepted, for which I doubt not 
 the author's pardon, since he shows himself so little concerned for the master of it." — 
 Life prefixed to Works, p. 142. 
 
 X Johnstone, 23rd May, 1688. This is another fact, which, though quoted by 
 Sir James Mackintosh (p. 241,) is not adverted to by Mr. Macaulay. See also 
 another "cotemporary authority, in Mr. Lawton's Memoir of William Penn, in Mem. 
 Pen. Hist. Soc, vol. iii. part. ii. pages 230, 231," quoted in Bancroft's Hist, of United 
 States, vol. ii. p. 397 n. : " Penn was against the commitment of the Bishops." 
 " He pressed the King exceedingly to set them at liberty."
 
 47 
 
 against the most despotic of James's deeds, that order to the 
 clergy to read the Declaration, which resulted in the com- 
 mittal of the Bishops to the Tower; and, as to his general 
 policy, we have in his favour the testimony of two most un- 
 exceptionable authorities, both of them cotemporary, and 
 both devoted to the Protestant cause. Lord Clarendon 
 informs us, in his Diary,* that " he laboured to thwart the 
 Jesuitical influence that predominated in James's reign, and 
 of this there is most full confirmation in a letter from Van 
 Citters, deposited in the State Paper Archives at the Hague, 
 in which he writes the Prince of Orange as follows : — " One 
 " of these days the well-known Arch Quaker Penn had a long 
 " interview with the King, and, as he has told one of his 
 " friends, has, he thinks, shown to the King that the Parlia- 
 " ment would never consent to the revocation of the Test and 
 ' ' Penal Laws, and that he never would get a Parliament to his 
 " mind so long as he would not go to work with greater mode- 
 " ration, and drive away from his presence, or at least not listen 
 " to these immoderate Jesuits, and other Papists, who surround 
 " him daily, and whose immoderate advice he now follows. "t 
 This letter was written some time after the proclamation of 
 the indulgence (July, 1687,) by a man whose business it was 
 to learn the character and sentiments of every person of in- 
 fluence in the Court, and who had the best opportunity for 
 getting at the truth ; and it is therefore somewhat strange 
 that Mr. Macaulay, although he acknowledges^ the great 
 
 * June 23, 1688. 
 
 t Aan Syn Hoogheyt & Raedpensionaris van Hollant. 
 
 29 
 Windsor den, ,„ July, 1687. 
 
 Dezer dagen was den bekenden Archiquaecker Pen zeer lange by den Coning, en 
 soo hy aen een syner vrienden verhaelt heeft soude, soo hy meynt, aen S..M. vertoont 
 hebben, dat het Parlement noyt tot vernietieginge van den Test en Poenale Wetten 
 sal willen verstaen ook noyt een Parlement tot syn sin krygen, soo hy met geen 
 meerder moderatie wil te werk gaen en van hem eloigneren, immers soo verre geen 
 gehoor geven, die immoderate Jesuyten en Andere Papisten die dagelyks om hem 
 zyn en wiens immoderate Concilia hy nu opvolgt. 
 
 t Macaulay, vol. i. p. 440.
 
 48 
 
 assistance he has obtained from the perusal of his despatches, 
 has so entirely neglected in this case also to make use of the 
 information they afford. 
 
 If, then, truth-telling loyalty to his Sovereign, and honest 
 gratitude to his benefactor — if earnest endeavours to rescue 
 his brethren from oppression, and to free the consciences of 
 his fellow subjects, were acts of intemperance, then was Penn's 
 conduct " intemperate" evidence that a Court had " impaired 
 " his moral sensibility ?' and if the preaching of principles 
 which were not practised, because too pure for his age, was a 
 folly, then did his political life give " proof that he was not a 
 " man of strong sense ;" but if such be Mr. Macaulay's rule of 
 judgment, he must excuse his readers if they apply it to him- 
 self. The temptation is irresistible to appeal from the his- 
 torian to the politician, and to ask him whether "his con- 
 " science reproaches" him for his eloquence in behalf of free- 
 dom of thought — whether he looks back with regret, as upon 
 youthful indiscretions, upon any attempts which he may have 
 made to aid his country in its progress — to improve the im- 
 perfect present by holding out the ideal future ? 
 
 True it is that Penn's efforts were unsuccessful — that the 
 King, turning a deaf ear to his counsel, was hurled from his 
 throne — that Catholic and Dissenter, disregarding his "Good 
 " Advice," his " Persuasive to Moderation," ri vetted each of 
 them his own chains in striving to fasten them on the neck 
 of the other, and so the one kept his Penal Laws and the 
 other his Test Act, and for a time Penn's policy was a failure, 
 or rather its accomplishment was delayed — until, by abolish- 
 ing the Test and emancipating the Catholics, Mr. Macaulay 
 and his friends succeeded in putting his theories into practice. 
 
 Yes, strange as it may seem, to fulfil the visions of that 
 vain foolish Quaker have been, ever since his death, the aim, 
 the glory, of our best and wisest statesmen. Like as the 
 citizens of Philadelphia are even now building the streets 
 which he planned on the unpeopled waste, so are the work-
 
 49 
 
 men in the temple of freedom yet labouring at the design 
 which he sketched out. Possibly his notions were dreams, 
 but if so, they were at least dreams which Mr. Macaulay 
 would be proud to be told he had spent his political life in 
 the effort to realise. 
 
 There now remains for notice only one charge, or rather 
 one statement needing examination — for it can scarcely be 
 considered a charge — viz., the assertion, that " the Friends" 
 disapproved of his conduct, that " even his own sect looked 
 " coldly on him, and requited his sendees with obloquy."* 
 Whether this statement be a fact or not is a matter of but 
 little importance, for Quakers not being infallible, their good 
 opinion of a line of policy is by no means necessary for its 
 defence. It certainly is not improbable that Penn may have 
 had " notions " more correct than were in his day common," 
 even among "the Friends," and that they also may have paid 
 to his superior enlightenment its usual reward of obloquy, but 
 for their credit more than his, it is but fair to state that this 
 assertion also is carelessly if not groundlessly made. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay's authority is Gerard Croese, but he, it must 
 be remembered, did not belong to the Quakers himself, nor 
 has his book ever been acknowledged by them as a fair and 
 exact history, and therefore his testimony as to the opinion 
 of their sect is of no value, Compared with that of their 
 own accredited historians, Sewell, Besse, and Gough.f The 
 favourable sentiments of the two first-named of these writers, 
 whose means of getting information were far superior to any 
 Croese can have possessed, have already been quoted, and 
 Gough writes to the same effect ; and, indeed, Mr. Macaulay 
 would not, it may confidently be stated, be able to find, either 
 in the records of the Society of Friends, or in any work 
 allowed to be a fair expression of its views, or in the journals 
 of any of its leading members, any passage which would 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. p. 506. 
 
 t Cough's Ilistory of the Quakers, vol. iii p 179 ; vol iv. pp. 177 to 179 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 support his insinuation, but, on the contrary, Penn is in these 
 documents always spoken of in terms which prove that the 
 " society of which he was a member" loved and respected him, 
 or, interpreting their sober reverence into Mr. Macaulay's 
 bold and somewhat exaggerated language, "honoured him 
 " as an apostle." 
 
 It is possible, indeed, that, inasmuch as the early Friends 
 looked upon themselves as a peculiar people set apart to be the 
 special servants of Him whose kingdom is not of this world, 
 some of them may have looked with uneasiness on his exertions 
 in the service of his country; but even of such uneasiness there 
 is no sufficient proof, and were there, his character would be 
 no ways affected. Enough, that the form of his religion, his 
 feelings as a Quaker, did not seem to him to interfere with the 
 fulfilment of his duty as a citizen. Had it done so, that form 
 would have been changed rather than his work left undone, 
 for he was not a man who could make one duty an excuse for 
 shirking another : within his conscience there was no conflict 
 between the claims of religion and patriotism : he did not fly 
 from the world, but faced it with true words and true deeds, 
 as one who, as he said himself when, during the storm of 
 persecution, he rebuked a powerful persecutor, " was above 
 " the fear of man, whose breath is in his nostrils, and must one 
 " day come to judgment, because he only feared the living God, 
 " that made the heavens and the earth."* This reverential fear 
 of God — this it was that made him fearless of man, that gave 
 him " integrity" to " stand firm against obloquy and persecu- 
 " tion," and not against them alone, but gave him power over 
 himself, strength to resist temptations from within as well as 
 to sustain violence from without; for it must be borne in mind, 
 that he was not one of those who take to piety only when 
 wearied of pleasure, ceasing to pluck the rose because they 
 have been pricked by its thorns. This " strong sense of 
 
 * Letter to Vice Chancellor of Oxford : Works, vol. i. p. 155.
 
 51 
 
 religious duty" was uot his because his other senses were 
 weak, or because he had satiated thern ; nor did he refrain 
 from enlisting himself in the service of God till he had proved 
 Mammon to be a hard master, but in the strength of his 
 passions he controlled them : in the spring-time of life, when 
 the prizes of pleasure and ambition were before him, he chose 
 the path of self-denial, and walked in it to the end. Hear 
 his own simple and touching account of the experiences of his 
 youth, as he thought it right to relate thern to some God- 
 fearing men whom he met with in his travels, in order, as he 
 said, that u those who were come to any measure of a divine 
 ' sense " might be " as looking-glasses to each other, as face 
 1 answereth face in a glass."* " Here I began to let them 
 'know," he says, "how and when the Lord first appeared 
 'unto me (anno 1656,) which was about the twelfth year of 
 ' my age ; how at times, betwixt that and the fifteenth, the 
 1 Lord visited me, and the divine impressions he gave me of 
 ' himself; of my persecution at Oxford, and how the Lord sus- 
 ' tained me in the midst of that hellish darkness and de- 
 1 bauchery ; of my being banished the College ; the bitter 
 ' usage I underwent when I returned to my father ; whipping, 
 'beating, and turning out of doors in 1662 ; of the Lord's 
 ' dealings with me in France, and in the time of the Great 
 ' Plague in London : in fine, the deep sense he gave me of 
 ' the vanity of this world, of the irreligiousness of the reli- 
 ' gions of it. Then, of my mournful and bitter cries to Him, 
 ' that He would show me His own way of life and salvation, 
 ' and my resolutions to follow him, whatever reproaches or 
 ' sufferings should attend me, and that with great reverence 
 ' and brokenness of spirit. How, after all this, the glory of 
 ' the world overtook me, and I was even ready to give up 
 ( myself unto it, seeing as yet no such thing as the Primitive 
 ' Spirit and Church on the earth, and being ready to faint 
 
 * Life prefixed to Works, p. 92.
 
 52 
 
 " concerning my hope of the restitution of all things/' had not 
 "at this time the Lord visited me with a certain sonnd and 
 " testimony of His eternal word, through one of these the 
 "world calls Quakers, namely, Thomas Loe." And then 
 " I related to them the bitter mockings and scornings that fell 
 " upon me, the displeasure of my parents, the invectiveness 
 and cruelty of the priests, the strangeness of all my com- 
 panions ; what a sign and wonder they made of me ; but 
 above all, that great cross of resisting and watching against 
 " mine own inward vain affections and thoughts." 
 
 And this son of a courtier, who thus preferred a prison to 
 a court — who chose as the companions of his youth, men, 
 whose very name was a byeword of scorn,* who until his 
 forty-first year had led a life of consistent self-control, and 
 proved his sincerity by his sufferings and sacrifices, can it be 
 believed that he could have thus suddenly found his " reso- 
 " lution give way," even though " courtly smiles and female 
 " blandishments" had been " offered" as " bribes to his 
 " vanity ?" 
 
 Mr. Macaulay's faith in human virtue must indeed have 
 been sorely tried — his estimate of the strength of religious 
 duty must be but slight — or, instead of suspecting " the emi- 
 nent virtues of such a man," he would have questioned the 
 probability of so strange a fall. But, like most men who are 
 over doubting in one direction, he is too little so in another, 
 for if he has little faith in the truth of Penn's professions, he 
 has at least a firm confidence in the certainty of his own sus- 
 picions — if he be sceptical of virtue, he compensates for it by 
 being credulous of vice ; and so, if he refuses to listen to the 
 
 * " A Quaker," or " some very melancholy thing," Pepys describes him in his 
 Diary (December 29, 1667), on his return from Ireland. " A very pleasant fact, to 
 Pepys, who hated the Admiral, and rejoiced in his perplexities at his son's religion, 
 but, doubtless, in his eyes, a strange fancy to be taken by the youth, who, three 
 yeara before (Diary, August 16, 1664), " had come back from France a most modish 
 person, grown, my wife says, a fine gentleman."
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 53 
 
 AA 000 564 036 2 
 
 concurrent testimony of " rival nations and hostile sects," he 
 yet gives full credence to the insinuations of party prejudice, 
 and makes up for his disbelief in the general estimate of 
 Penn's character by an admission of charges respecting which 
 it is hard to discover the facts of which they are the dis- 
 tortion. 
 
 But the voice of history cannot be thus silenced : she has 
 already recorded her judgment, from which there is no 
 appeal; and why need Mr. Macaulay cavil at its justice, for, 
 strange as it may seem to him, there is in it no mystery. 
 
 This Quaker was a strong and a brave, and therefore a free 
 man : he ruled himself, and fearing God, feared no other ; 
 and so he made posterity his debtor, for that spirit which won 
 freedom for himself he left to it as a legacy, and there is no 
 fear that the debt due to him will be unpaid, so long as the 
 inheritance remains. 
 
 The memory of good men is sacred : we treasure it, as we 
 value our safety in the present — our hope for the future, for 
 on what, after all, depends our national freedom, of which 
 Mr. Macaulay so often and so loudly vaunts ? — most assuredly 
 not, as he would seem to think,"* on the limitations of the pre- 
 rogative of our rulers, handed down to us from our ancestors, 
 but on that spirit of individual justice, which, inasmuch as it 
 breathed in their hearts, made their freedom both possible 
 and necessary, of the strength whereof these limitations were 
 and are the exact measure. It is not to the fact that for ages 
 past Englishmen have had the habit of preventing their kings 
 from taking their money, or making or breaking laws at their 
 pleasure, that they owe what liberties they possess. These 
 "three great constitutional principles,"t as Mr. Macaulay 
 calls them, are indeed the signs of our freedom, their pre- 
 valence has been the measure of its growth, but to suppose 
 them to be its origin is to commit the absurdity of taking the 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i. cliap. 1. f Macaulay, vol. i. p. 29.
 
 54 
 
 effect for the cause. Individual self-government, that alone 
 is the cause of national freedom — the source and guarantee 
 of the liberty of the subject — for that alone makes personal 
 liberty compatible with social order ; and of this power of 
 self- control, the force whereof gauges the freedom of all 
 governments, and without which all constitutions — yes, even 
 the " glorious constitution of 1688" — are mere waste-paper, 
 of this power the highest possible ideal is " a strong sense of 
 " religious duty." 
 
 Alas, then, for our liberties, if ever, as a nation, we follow 
 the example of Mr. Macaulay, and reverence, in place of this 
 spirit, those forms which are but its expression, for then 
 indeed will they become to us a mockery and a stumbling- 
 block, but until we do so, there is no fear that we shall forget 
 that " for the authority of law, for the security of property, 
 " for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our homes, 
 " our gratitude is due," not alone " to the Long Parliament, 
 " to the Convention, and to "William of Orange,"* to them 
 indeed, but if to them, then also to that " mythical person," 
 whose -life, grotesque as may have been its garb, was, more 
 than that of any politician of his day, the incarnation of this 
 spirit 'of self-control, and whose words and deeds yet dwell 
 within our memories as witnesses of his power. 
 
 * Macaulay, concluding paragraph of vol. ii. 
 
 Printed for Charles Gilpin, 5, Bishopsgate Street, Without.